


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


Shelf 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






kA i j * j/LJi il A J 




\ 




4 


* 



































































































I 





•WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF THE BEST CURRENT & STANDARD LITERATURE 


V f ol, 8. No. 435. S»pt. 20, 1884. Annual Subscription, 


MISS 


TOMMY 


A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN 


Entered at the Post Office, N. Y., as second-class matter. 
Copyright, 1884, by John W. Lovell Co. 




1. Hyperion 

2. Outre-Mer 20 

3. The Happy Boy 10 

4. Arne.. 10 

5. F rankenstein 10 

6. TheLast of theMohicans.20 

7. Clytie 20 

8. The Moonstone, Part 1 . 10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist 20 

11. The Coining Race 10 

12. Leila 10 

13. The Three Spaniards. . .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks.20 

15. L’Abbd Constantin 20 

16. Freckles 20 

17. The Dark Colleen 20 

18. They were Married .... 10 

19. Seekers After God 20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys.. 20 

22. Fleurette 20 

23. Second Thoughts 20 

24. The New Magdalen 20 

25. Divorce 20 

26. Life of Washington 20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart, Double 

Face 10 

29. Irene; or, The Lonely 

Manor 20 

30. Vice Versa 20 

31. Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House... 10 

33. Joh# Halifax 20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 

Amazon 10 

35. The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

37. Paul and Virginia ....... 10 

38. A Tale of Two Cities .... 20 

39. The Hermits 20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 

etc 10 

41. A Marriage in High Life2o 

42. Robin ... .20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas 10 

45. Alice ; a sequel to Er- 

nest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen 10 

48. A Princess of Thule 20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. . .20 

50. Early Days of Christian- 
ity, 2 Parts, each 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield 10 

52. Progress and Poverty ... 20 

53. The Spy 20 

54. East Lynne 20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Part I 15 

Adam Bede, Part II 15 

5; The Golden Shaft 20 

58 Portia 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii. . .20 

60. The Two Duchesses 20 

61. TomBrown’sSchoolDays.20 

62. Wooing O’t, 2 Pts. each. 15 

63. The Vendetta 20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1 15 

Hypatia, Part II is 


65. Selma 15 

66. Margaret and her Brides- 

. aids 20 

67. Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each 15 

68. Gulliver’s Travels 20 

69. Amos Barton 10 

70. The Berber 20 

71. Silas Marner > 10 

72. Queen of the Couhty . ..20 

73. Life of Cromwell 15 

74. Jane Eyre 20 

75. Child’sHist’ry of Engl’d. 20 

76. Molly Bawn. 20 

77. Pillone 15 

78. Phyllis 20 

79. Romola, Part 1 15 

Romola, Part II 15 

80. Science in ShortChapters. 20 

81. Zanom 20 

82. A Daughter of Heth .... 20 

83. Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

84. Night and Morning, Pt. 1 . 15 
NightandMorning,Pt.II 15 

85. Shandon Bells 20 

86. Monica 10 

87. Heart and Science 20 

88. The Golden Calf 20 

89. The Dean’s Daughter ... 20 

90. Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

91. Pickw’ick Papers, Part I.20 
Pickwick Papers, Part II.20 

92. Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

93. Macleod of Dare 20 

94. Tempest Tossed, Part 1 . 20 
Tempest Tossed, P’t II. 20 

95. Letters from High Lat- 

itudes... 20 

96. Gideon Fleyce 20 

97. India and Ceylon 20 

98. The Gypsy Queen 20 

99. The Admiral’s Ward. . . .20 

100. Nimport, 2 Parts, each. .15 

101. Harry Holbrooke. 20 

102. Tritons, 2 Parts, each .. 15 

103. Let Nothing You Dismay, io 

104. LadyAudley’s Secret... 20 
j'-'s. Woman’s Place To-day. 20 

106. Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 

107. Housekeeping and Home 

making 15 

108. No New Thing 20 

109. TheSpoopendykePapers.20 

no. False Hopes 15 

hi. Labor and Capital 20 

112. Wanda, 2 parts, each -..15 

113. More Words about Bible. 20 
1 14 Monsieur Lecocq, P’t. I.20 

Monsieur Lecocq, Pt. II. 20 

1 1 5. An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 

1 16. The Lerouge Case 20 

1 17. Paul Clifford .... 20 

1 18. A New Lease of Life.. .20 

119. Bourbon Lilies 20 

12a Other People’s Money.. 20 

121. Lady of Lyons 10 

122. Ameline de Bourg 15 

123. A Sea Queen 20 

124. The Ladies Lindores. . .20 

125. Haunted Hearts 10 

126. Loys, Lord Beresford.. .20 


127. Under Two Flags, Pt I. 20 
Under Two Flags, Pt II. 20 

128. Money 10 

129. In Peril of His Life 20 

130. India; What can it teach 

us ? 20 

131. Jets and Flashes 20 

132. Moonshine and Margue- 
rites 

133. Mr. Scarborough’s 
Family, 2 Parts, each . . 15 

134. Arden 15 

135. Tower of Percemont.. ..20 

136. Yolande 20 

137. Cruel London ..20 

138. The Gilded Clique 20 

139. Pike County Folks 20 

140. Cricket on the Hearth.. 10 

141. Henry Esmond 20 

142. Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

143. Denis Duval 10 

144. 01 dCuriosityShop,P’t 1 . 15 
01 dCuriosityShop,P’rt II. 15 

145. Ivanhoe, Part I 15 

* Ivanhoe, Part II 15 

146. White Wings 20 

147. The Sketch Book 20 

148. Catherine 10 

149. Janet’s Repentance 10 

150. Bamaby Rudge, Part I. . 15 
Barnaby Rudge, Part II. 15 

151. Felix Holt 20 

152. Richelieu 10 

153. Sunrise, Part 1 15 

153. Sunrise, Part II 15 

154. Tour of the World in 80 

Days 20 

155. Mystery of Orcival 20 

156. Lovel, the Widower.... 10 

157. Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 10 

158. DavidCopperfield, Part I.20 
DavidCopperfield,P’rt II.20 

159. Charlotte Temple ..10 

160. Rienzi, 2 Parts, each ...15 

161. Promise of Marriage .... 10 

162. Faith and Unfaith 20 

163. The Happy Man 

i 6 j,. Barry Lyndon ..20 

165. Eyre’s Acquittal 10 

166. 20,000 Leagues Under the 

Sea 20 

167. Anti-Slavery Days 20 

168. Beauty’s Daughters 20 

169. Beyond the Sunrise 20 

170. Hard Times 20 

171. Tom Cringle’s Log .... 20 

172. Vanity Fair 30 

173. Underground Russia 20 

174. Middlemarch,2 Pts,each,20 

175. Sir Tom 

176. Pelham 20 

177. The Story of Ida 10 

178. Madcap Violet 20 

179. The Little Pilgrim 10 

180. Kilmeny 20 

181. Whist, or Bumblepuppy?. 10 

182. That Beautiful Wretch.. 20 

183 Her Mother’s Sin 20 

184. Green Pastures, etc..... 20 

185, Mysterious Island, Pt I, x$ 


5 MISS TOMMY 


21 ftlcbioroal Eomcutce 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 

“JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN ” 




V 



NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 
14 and 16 Vesey Street 




PREFACE. 


In the exciting blaze of modern fiction the glowworm 
light of this simple and old-fashioned story almost seems 
to need apology ; except that it is, in degree, a true 
story ; and truth is always worth something. My heroine 
really lived ; about half a century ago ; she was very 
beautiful and charming ; her name was Thomasina, and 
she was generally called “ Miss Tommy.” 

Perhaps, in these days, when so many women disdain 
to be such — contemning domestic life, and, by a curious 
contradiction, at once imitating and despising men, it 
may be excusable to have painted one who was “ only a 
woman ” — nothing more. 


* 



























I 




* 




























































































































— • 




















• 





. 


























MISS TOMMY. 


PART I. 

“You should call her Thomasina,” said I, as I held in 
my arms a friend’s first baby, whose dear and honored 
father bears the old-fashioned name of Thomas, though 
suppressed into an initial. 

“ Thomasina ? ” repeated the young mother with po- 
lite hesitation. “ Isn’t it a — rather a long name ? And 
if it were shortened — fancy her being called *Tom’ or 
‘ Tommy ’ ! ” 

“ Why not ? The most charming woman I ever knew 
was named Thomasina, and all her life was called * Miss 
Tommy.’ ” 

While I spoke the old days came back upon me — the 
days when I was a girl, who am now a middle-aged 
mother. I saw her clear as if it were yesterday, my dear 
11 Miss Tommy,” whom I loved with a kind of passionate 
admiration, such as a girl often conceives for an elderly 
woman, and which she returned with the tenderness that 
warm childless hearts give, and are glad to give, to 
other people’s children. 

She rises up before me now — her pale, pure face, her 
small, dainty figure, her gentle way of moving and speak- 
ing, and her dear little soft hands — she had such pretty 


6 


MISS TOMMY. 


hands to the very last. But her beauty was not obtrusive. 
You might be in the room with her for ever so long and 
not notice Miss Tommy, till you came and sat beside her 
— found her out, so to speak ; and then you were never 
likely to forget her. I never did, from the first hour 
when I made her acquaintance. 

It was in a ball-room, of all places in the world — a 
London ball-room. I was sitting in a corner, dull and 
silent, refusing to dance, for the only one I had cared to 
dance with had just gone off to India, and as I was only 
nineteen and he two-and-twenty, our parents would not 
let us be engaged ; they said we would change our minds 
half a dozen times during the three years that he was to 
be away — which might have been true, though it wasn’t. 
So I wore the willow, half in sorrow, half in anger, for 
Charlie Gordon’s sake, and thought myself the most 
miserable and ill-used girl in the world. 

Everybody — that is, the “everybody” of a large 
family and a circle of affectionate friends — knew of my 
griefs and my wrongs. Some blamed, no doubt, and 
some sympathized, for Charley was a universal favorite. 
He was away, luckily for him, and out of it all ; for me, 
I bore my heart-break as best I could, and tried to wear 
my willow — rather ostentatiously, but with a dignified 
grace which raised me very much in my own opinion, 
and even afforded me a certain consolation. 

I can smile at myself now, at the folly of supposing 
that the whole order of things was to be turned upside 
down to make two lovers happy — two creatures, young 
and foolish, with not a half-penny between them. And 
yet I am a little sorry for my old self too, for it was 
a very honest self, and its pain was a very real pain. I 
should not like to inflict the like on my own children 
without serious cause. 


MISS TOMMY. 


7 


Enough of this, however, though it is not so much out- 
side my story as it appears to be. 

I had been sitting, silent and sullen, watching the 
couples waltzing round, and declining every partner who 
came up to me, with a scarcely civil negative — they 
were decent young men enough, but, oh, so inferior to 
Charlie ! — when I heard some one beside me say, in a 
gentle tone, “ Do you dislike dancing ? ” 

It was a small and rather elderly lady — a “ wall-flower ” 
like myself — but with such a beautiful face, and such a 
pretty dress — a dove-colored silk trimmed with rich old 
lace. But her toilet was not of the youthful style that the 
London ladies of her age made themselves look old and 
ugly in — nay, might even have been called “ provincial ” 
had it not been so very suitable and graceful. Who she 
was I had no idea, and yet, as the ball was in my aunt’s 
house, I knew nearly all the guests. And I might have 
resented this question from a stranger, but for the ex- 
ceedingly gentle way in which it was put. I did not 
answer it, however, and the lady continued: 

“ I think I have seen you before, Miss Murray, but 
you were quite a little girl then. It is some years since 
I visited your aunt, for I seldom come up to London. 
My home is at Dover.” 

“ Dover ! ” It was the place dear Charlie’s last letter 
was dated from. “Do you know Dover, and — and the 
regiments stationed there ? ” I eagerly asked. 

“ No ; I am an humble civilian,” said she, with a quiet 
smile. “ I have no military connections. But the other 
day I watched a regiment leave for India — the — th.” 

It was Charlie’s own. And by her way of looking 
down and not at me, and by a certain tender intonation 
in her voice, I was sure she knew about me and Charlie. 
Perhaps she was sorry for us. I grasped her hand. 


8 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ Indeed, I ought to know you, to remember you ; but 
I forget your name.” 

“ I am Miss Trotter — Thomasina Trotter — sometimes 
called ‘ Miss Tommy.’ ” 

She laughed and I laughed, which prevented my cry- 
ing — which I was ready to do. To think of this little 
old lady having had the last precious glimpse denied to 
me — the sight of my Charlie before he sailed ! 

“Miss Tommy! What a funny name ! I must tell 
it to — ” And then the thought that I had now no Charlie 
to tell anything to, for our parents would not let us cor- 
respond, came upon me with such a pang that I could 
hardly keep back the tears. 

Miss Trotter touched my hand softly, and then stood 
up in front of me, as if admiring the dancers, till I had 
recovered my composure. 

“ I beg your pardon. I ought not to be so silly ; but, 
oh!” — here my grief burst out — “he is just gone to 
India, and that was his regiment you saw, and — if you 
had ever known Charlie Gordon ” 

The old lady — she seemed old to me who was nineteen 
— started slightly, and a sudden color flushed all over 
her delicate features. “My dear,” she said, taking my 
hand, “ I did not know this Charlie Gordon, but from 
all I hear of him I can imagine that his friends must miss 
him sorely. And to part with any one dear to us, for 
along absence abroad, with all the chances and risks of 
absence, is” — here her voice faltered — “ is a hard thing.” 

Then she did know all. How I blessed her for her 
kind words ! . 

“But,” she continued, suddeniy brightening, “let us 
hope he will come back safe and sound, and — just the 
same.” 

Yes, she did understand. I, who thought my love 


MISS TOMMY. 


9 


affair the most important affair in the world, was grate- 
ful to the old lady, and felt that I could have loved her 
in spite of her ugly and vulgar name, “ Miss Tommy 
Trotter.” Who could she be ? I had never heard of 
her ; but then my aunt had a large circle of friends out- 
side our circle, and for many months past my interests 
had narrowed down to one person. I cared little for 
anybody that was not connected with Charlie. 

I should soon have poured out into her sympathizing 
bosom the whole story of me and Charlie, but for the 
unromantic intervention of supper, to which some one 
took her in, and she disappeared. I might have for- 
gotten her altogether, for in my preoccupied state of 
mind I was apt to forget both people and things, every- 
thing but Charlie, had not my mother one day, sitting 
by my bed-side — I had fretted myself at last into real 
illness — said suddenly: 

“ Decie” (being the tenth, I had been christened 
Decima), “ where did you meet Miss Tommy Trotter?” 

“ Miss Tommy Trotter ? ” 

“An old friend of your aunt’s, now staying with her. 
She was asking kindly after you, and sorry you were ill. 
She also said, as you had been ordered sea air, and as it 
is so inconvenient for me to leave home, if I would trust 
you to her at Dover ” 

“ Dover ? Yes, I will go. Please let me go at once,” 
cried I, with an eagerness that must have given a pang 
to my tender mother, with whom I had steadily refused 
to go anywhere. But she had already learned, as 
mothers must, that there had come a time when even 
she could not make her darling happy. Years after, 
when she slept peacefully “ under the daisies,” I found 
out by my own experience how miserable I must have 
made my poor mother in those days. 


TO 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ Very well, dear,” was all she said. “Miss Trotter, 
your aunt tells me, is a most sensible woman, and will 
look after your health. And you will have sufficient 
comforts, even luxuries, for she is a lady of fortune, in- 
herited from her uncle, Mr. Thomas Trotter ; a most re- 
spectable man, but not quite a gentleman ; in fact, a tai- 
lor — an army tailor.” 

We Murrays are proud of our blue blood, and since I 
had known the Gordons I was prouder still. For a mo- 
ment I hesitated, and wished I had not so readily con- 
sented to visit a tailor’s neice. 

“ But she looks and speaks like a gentlewoman, Miss 
Trotter herself ” 

“ And she is a gentlewoman, or your aunt would not 
have kept up acquaintance with her. She first heard of 
her through a mutual friend, who said the Trotters were 
always ‘quite respectable.’ ” 

“ What friend ? ” 

“ Major Gordon,” my mother answered, hesitating, for 
that was Charlie’s old uncle in India. His name turned 
the~balance. I was now determined to go to Dover. In 
truth, I would almost have gone anywhere to get away 
from home. 

Two days after — for I rose from my bed and packed 
my things myself the very next day, as if I had never 
been ill at all — two days after I found myself breathing 
the salt air, and gazing across the stormy ocean which 
had carried away my Charlie. Indeed, the first walk I 
insisted on taking was to the pier-head, where his dear 
feet, in those lovely military boots about which he was 
so particular, had last touched English shores. To be 
sure, that sacred spot was now occupied by a burly sailor 
who, from his huge boots to his old sou’wester, formed 
a striking contrast to my Charlie ; still, I viewed him 


MISS TOMMY. 


n 


with tender interest ; and there, with the sea-breeze blow- 
ing my tears away, and the bright winter sun — if the win- 
ter sun shines anywhere, it shines at Dover — making me 
feel hopeful in spite of myself, I told Miss Tommy my 
love-story from beginning to end. We were keeping 
the carriage waiting at the pier-head all the time, but I 
never thought of that ; in those days I was not in the 
habit of thinking much about anybody except myself and 
my sorrows. 

Miss Trotter listened to them with great patience, 
though with not quite so much mournful sympathy as I 
had expected. In fact, when I had finished, she actually 
smiled. 

“ The end ? No, my dear ; I cannot call it the end 
yet : you are but nineteen. And now, as it is a little 
chilly, what do you say to our going home to tea ?” 

I did not care for tea — not I ! I would much rather 
have driven up and down the pleasant esplanade, to 
watch the sun setting behind the heights and throwing 
his last glimmer on Dover Castle, where Charlie had 
spent those few sad last days, thinking of me (at least I 
hope so). But my companion said gently, though de- 
cisively, “We must go in ” — and we went in. 

The house was not near so grand as I expected, from 
what I had heard of Miss Trotter’s large fortune. Eight 
hundred a year or so — I was trying to grow learned about 
incomes — would have kept it luxuriously. It was a very 
pretty house, sitting — to speak metaphorically — with its 
back under the cliff and its feet to the shore, a little gar- 
den alone parting it from the sea ; indeed, in very high 
winter tides the waves actually washed into the flower 
beds, creating much destruction, which, however, was 
always repaired by spring. For it w^as such a sheltered, 
sunshiny nook ; and the rooms, though small, were most 


\ 


12 MISS TOMMY. 

daintily and tastefully furnished : the whole atmosphere 
within and without was so redolent of cheerful peace, 
that on entering I gave a great sigh of satisfaction, and 
wondered if Charlie had ever seen it. 

“ I really cannot say,” replied my hostess, smiling, 
“ not having had the honor of Lieutenant Gordon’s ac- 
quaintance. And 

‘ How should I your true-love know 
From another one’ 

of the many young officers who walk up and down here ? 
Dover town is all dotted with bits of scarlet : and — 
hark ! there is the bugle — we are quite a military com- 
munity, you see.” 

“ I am so glad ! ” For it warmed my heart and made 
me happy — being “ a lass that loved a soldier,” and fain 
to cast my lot with him for good or ill. Silly enough 
and yet * 

Miss Tommy regarded me with a curious, tender kind 
of observation, till the smile on her lips melted into a 
half-sigh. She turned away and began making the tea, 
which she always did with her own hands, despite her 
well-appointed household of servants — women-servants 
only. There was apparently no butler in her establish- 
ment ; and though the carriage we had just stepped out 
of was exceedingly comfortable, there were no footmen 
in livery behind it. We had to open and shut its doors 
ourselves. Altogether, even on this my first day at 
Miss Trotter’s house, I was much struck by the total 
absence of show and formality ; by refinement without 
lavishness, and comfort without luxury. 

“ An old maid’s house,” as she placidly called it, hop- 
ing I should be happy therein. Could I? Are old 


MISS TOMMY. 


T 3 


maids ever happy ? Which of course I disbelieved, at 
nineteen. After many more years’ experience and ob- 
servation of life I incline to reconsider my verdict. 

Even now — to me who had just gone through a great 
domestic convulsion, to say nothing of the small tem- 
pests in teapots that were always brewing in our numer- 
ous and tumultuous family — the exceeding repose of the 
maiden household I had dropped into, where nobody 
squabbled and nobody “fussed,” was most soothing and 
pleasant. 

It was, of course, a silent house — no children running 
about or girls singing up and down the stairs ; but when 
one has had rather too much of domestic noise, silence 
is agreeable for a time. And it was a small house, 
much smaller than I had expected — which, perhaps, in 
some youthfully incautious manner I betrayed, for Miss 
Trotter said, in the course of our tea-dinner — not a reg- 
ular late dinner at all : 

“ I hope, my dear, you will be able to make yourself 
happy here. You see, I live quite simply. Where 
would be the use of anything else ? There is only my- 
self. One cannot eat more than one dinner, or sleep in 
more than one room, at the same time. Still,” she added, 
with that curiously bright smile she had — a mixture of 
pain struggling with pathos, like a person who had tried 
to be happy all her life in spite of circumstances — “still 
I must own that I like a nice dinner and a pretty 
room.” 

“And certainly you have them,” I answered, with a 
full sincerity that evidently pleased her. 

“ Yes, I think this is pretty,” said she, glancing round 
the room and out of the window, where the last gleam 
of sunset was shining on the distant sea. “ Sycamore 
Hall, my uncle’s place in the country, is much larger 


14 


MISS TOMMY. 


and grander, and I have to live there in summer-time, 
and I try to keep it up properly, but I like my little 
Dover house much better.” 

Here the conversation ceased, for I felt it awkward. 
In her place I should have ignored as much as possible 
this defunct tailor-uncle — “quite respectable” as he 
had been termed by Major Gordon ; but Miss Trotter 
referred to him and to his Sycamore Hall — no doubt a 
mansion full of coarse and vulgar splendors — as calmly 
as she did to her own small house and simple way of 
living. She must be an “ odd” sort of person, I thought, 
and very different from the people among whom I had 
been accustomed to move — “our circle,” as my sisters 
sometimes called it. 

Miss Trotter, as I found out in course of our talk, had 
no sisters, no relations at all. She was, in the full sense 
of the term, a solitary old maid, yet the least like an old 
maid, and, as I soon discovered, the least solitary, of 
any lady I ever knew. For a “ lady,” even in my sisters’ 
reading of the word, no one could doubt she was, in 
spite of her uncle the tailor. 

She devoted herself to me with a cordial politeness, 
though mingled with occasional fits of what appeared to 
me like shyness, for the whole of the first day, for I was 
very tired, and perhaps just a trifle cross — “ depressed,” 
as I called it — and, like many another young goose, I 
had come to consider depression — that condition in 
which one sits dumb and dogged, with downcast eyes, 
and cheek leaning on one’s hand — as rather a virtue than 
not. It took all my hostess’s kindly pains to rouse me 
from it, by talking to me and showing me the town of 
Dover — that dear, old-fashioned town, which I shall al- 
ways love to the bottom of my heart. 

It has changed little since those days, or, indeed, 


MISS TOMMY. 


*5 


since days long before then. In its narrow streets and 
quaint back alleys you may still come upon bits of 
Roman brick-work, mediaeval stone-work, and solid 
last-century wood-work. The place is full of relics in- 
teresting to the archaeologist, from the time of Julius 
Caesar upward. You, continental travellers, rushing 
through it, and you, fashionable diners at the “ Lord 
Warden,” have no idea how picturesque Dover can 
look, with its quaint, foreign-like Snargate Street, its 
old-world Castle Street, with a noble view of the Castle 
framed in at the end, and finally the Castle itself, which 
Charlie had told me about, and which I was so eager to 
see — walking about the embattled rock, up and down 
steps, and in and out of fortifications, with feet as active 
as if I had never been ill. 

In truth, I did not feel very ill, the air was so pure 
and invigorating, the sense of freedom and hope so 
strong, and the little old lady by my side was such a 
bright companion, taking such a hearty interest in 
everything about her, including me. For I could see 
that I, Decima Murray, really was an object of interest 
to her, at which in my youthful conceit I was not at all 
surprised, nor at the unwearied patience with which she 
listened to my endless references to my sorrows — of 
course, the most important subject in the world was 
that of Charlie and me. 

I was, however, “ taken down a peg,” as Charlie would 
have said, when, after breakfast on the second day, Miss 
Tommy rose at once. 

“Now, my dear, I must leave you to amuse yourself. 
Being rather a busy woman, I never attempt to enter- 
tain my guests. Here are plenty of books and music ; 
and there is the shore — it is very pleasant sitting on the 
shingle in front of the house, if you have nothing else 


i6 


MISS TOMMY. 


to do ; dinner is at one ; and the carriage will be round 
soon after two, and ” 

She went on to outline the day and my duties in it, 
making me out to be a mere portion of the household life, 
instead of the pivot upon which it all turned. Not very 
flattering, but she did it so naturally and cheerfully that 
one could not be offended. 

“ I hope you will not be dull, my dear. My young 
guests seldom are, and I have a good many from time 
to time. It is very pleasant to an old woman to have 
a girl in the house. They help me, too, in many ways.” 

Now, I had never been accustomed to help anybody. 
I always expected everybody to help me. Being the 
youngest, and the beauty of the family, from the time 
I left school I had idled about in great enjoyment. 
From the choosing of a dress to the sewing on of a 
glove-button, everything had been done for me, and I 
had no mind to change this order of things. I was no 
longer a light-hearted girl, but an ill-used woman and 
an interesting invalid. So I tacitly ignored the sugges- 
tion of my being useful, and began killing time, orna- 
mentally, in my customary way. 

Still, after a while this became rather monotonous, 
especially when I saw my hostess busy day after day, 
occupied from morning to night with duties domestic 
and duties social ; for she had evidently a large circle 
of friends, in which she was an important element — a 
rich single woman always is. Even when she found 
time for a brief chat with me, she had always her knit- 
ting or sewing at hand, to work while she talked. Our 
two hours’ drive every afternoon for the good of my 
health was, I think, the only portion of the day in 
which I ever saw her idle. 

I wondered at her. An elderly woman, and an old 


MISS TOMMY. 


J 7 


maid too, for whom life was over — or, rather, for whom 
it had never begun, for what is life without love in it ? 
— how could she be so cheerful ? For cheerful she in- 
variably was ; not with any exuberant spirits, but with 
a quiet under-current of placid gayety, that I — shall I 
say I envied ? Not exactly. Sometimes I almost pitied 
her for having had either no heart at all or no use for 
one ; and I hugged my grief, turned away from the sight 
of Miss Trotter’s bright face, let my listless hands drop 
idle on my lap, and sat and mourned for Charlie. 

“ Are you not sorry for me ? ” I asked one day, when 
we had been sitting talking as we drove ; at least, I had 
talked, and all about myself, of course. So preoccupied 
was I that I never noticed all the beauty of ocean and 
sky, Walmer Castle, St. Margaret’s, and the Goodwin 
Sands — that smiling, glittering expanse of sea where 
many a ship has gone down. “ Surely you must be sor- 
ry for me ? ” 

“Yes, very. But,” after a pause, “not exactly for 
what you suppose.” 

“ Not for being parted from Charlie ? Why, I am the 
most unhappy girl in the world.” 

“ Are you ? ” she said, smiling. Then suddenly chang- 
ing into seriousness, “No girl can be considered ‘the 
most unhappy girl in the world,’ be her love ever so un- 
fortunate, if she has loved, and if the object of her affec- 
tion has never been unworthy of it.” 

“What, not if she was torn from him, as I from 
Charlie ? or lost him in some way — if he died, or — mar- 
ried somebody else ? ” 

Miss Tommy (I like to call her thus) sat silent, her lit- 
tle hands folded over her muff, and her eyes looking 
straight forward with a sort of wistfulness in them — 
those sweet brown eyes, so merry, bright, and clear ! 


2 


i8 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ Different people, my dear, have different opinions, 
and yours may not agree with mine. But I think, and 
I have always thought, that, if a girl has a real true af- 
fection — I will not say a passion, which is a selfish thing, 
but a devotion, which is the most unselfish thing on 
earth — and has the strength to keep to it, nothing can 
ever make such an attachment ‘unfortunate,’ except the 
man’s sinking so low that to love him becomes worse . 
than a folly — a degradation. But I must not become 
didactic,” added she, with a sudden change of tone and 
manner. “ If there is # a thing that frightens young peo- 
ple, it is preaching — I never preach.” 

That was true. If I had now and again felt so ashamed 
of my idleness that I seriously contemplated asking her 
to give me something to do, it was not because she ever 
told me I was lazy ; only, contrasted with her busy life, 

I began to see the fact only too plainly. 

“ My love for Charlie could never be a degradation,” 

I replied with dignity. “ He is the best of men. Indeed, 

; the Gordons are all honorable men. His father is long 
dead, killed in battle, as you know ” — of course, I sup- 
posed everybody to know and remember every small 
fact connected with Charlie — “but his uncle and god- 
father is, he says, quite a preux chevalier , a Bayard, a Don 
Quixote, as they call him in the family. You must have 
heard of him. Perhaps you know him ? ’* 

“ Yes.” 

And then I remembered it was Major Gordon who had 
vouched for the Trotters being “ respectable.” Proba- 
bly the departed Thomas Trotter had been his tailor. I 
felt a little shy of the subject. To me the idea of a tailor 
in the family was as bad as a sheep-stealer ; worse, in- 
deed, for I could quite sympathize with Charlie when 
he told me of his ancestors the Border chieftains, “ sev- 


MISS TOMMY. 


r 9 


eral of whom were hanged, and a good many more ought 
to have been.” But a tailor! I turned away my eyes 
from my companion’s sweet face, and contemplated 
Dover Castle in the distance ; would have changed the 
subject, but Miss Trotter evidently had no intention of 
avoiding it. 

“ I knew Major Gordon when he was a young man,” 
she said. “ He first made acquaintance with my uncle 
in the way of business, and then he met my father, who 
was a country clergyman, and a very clever man. He 
came often to our house at one time.” 

“ And you know him still. What is he like ? ” I asked, 
eagerly ; for anything or anybody connected with Charlie 
was interesting to me. 

“ Yes, I may say I know him still ; for he is not one 
to neglect an old acquaintance. I have seen him every 
time he has returned to England.” 

“ That has not been very often. Do you know — have 
you ever heard — ” I stopped, remembering the “skele- 
ton in the house,” which Charlie had confided to me. 
“ Did you ever see* — his wife ? ” 

“ Yes ; she was a very beautiful woman — a good deal 
older than he.” 

“And was she bad or mad — or what? Did she run 
away from him, or was he obliged to shut her up ? 
Charlie did not know ; nobody did know, he says. Poor 
Major Gordon was always quite silent both as to his 
sorrows and his wrongs. But it does not matter — she 
is dead now.” 

“ Dead !” 

“Yes ; she died six months ago. Charlie said his 
uncle might possibly be coming home soon ; but he 
hoped — and I hope too — it would not be just yet, 
till he himself had reached India. An uncle of Major 


20 


MISS TOMMY. 


Gordon’s high character would be so very useful to 
Charlie.” 

“Yes,” answered Miss Trotter, rather vaguely; and 
then the conversation dropped. Nor — in spite of my 
anxiety to get as much out of her as I could respecting 
this uncle and namesake, upon whose will and power to 
help Charlie, by promotion or otherwise, depended so 
much of our future — did I succeed in eliciting any more 
facts about Major Gordon. Indeed, I soon came, per- 
haps hastily, to the conclusion that there were none to 
discover ; that the acquaintance between them had been 
so slight, and renewed so briefly, and at such long 
periods, as to leave nothing to talk about. 

At any rate, Miss Trotter would not talk, either about 
his personal appearance, which Charlie had said was 
“so queer,” or his income, or his relations with his un- 
fortunate wife. She just answered my questions as 
briefly as civility allowed, and spoke of something else. 
In this, as in most other matters, I soon found Miss 
Trotter disliked “ talking over ” things. If she was an 
old maid, she was an old maid not given to gossip. 

As time went on — my visit extending from days to 
weeks — I almost forgot she was an old maid. She had 
such motherly ways with the heaps of young people 
who were perpetually haunting her house, making it 
anything but a dull house ; and she moved about it so 
brightly and actively, with her little, light figure and 
her pretty face — I think small women keep young much 
longer than big ones. Miss Trotter seemed to me to 
grow younger and younger every week ; there was a 
sunshine in her smile and an elasticity in her step; 
and then her complexion, that “ crux ” of elderly ladies, 
was kept so fresh and fair by her simple, regular life, 
her busy habits and placid mind, that sometimes, to 


MISS TOMMY. 


21 


call her, as she always called herself, “an old woman,” 
seemed quite ridiculous. 

And then she had such a young heart. She would 
laugh like a child over a funny story, cry like a child 
over a pathetic book. But she was not sentimental. 
By and by, whenever I b6gan talking of my woes, she 
adroitly changed the conversation, gave me something 
else to think about — something to do. Doing, not 
talking, was her characteristic. , She was decidedly a 
woman of few words. She said she “liked thinking 
best ; ” and whenever we were together, after we had 
grown familiar with one another, there used to come 
long pauses of busy silence, during which, fast as our 
fingers moved — for I at last condescended to work too 
— we scarcely interchanged a single word. 

Sometimes, when I got tired of thinking, even about 
my Charlie, I used to wonder what in the world Miss 
Trotter was thinking about — what she could find to 
think about, old as she was, and with no Charlie. Once 
I asked her. 

She colored up, almost as vividly as I should have 
done had I been thinking of Charlie. 

“What do I think about, did you say? Why, my 
dear, 1 can hardly tell. I have always been a rather 
meditative person, and during my life I have had a good 
deal to think of, and a good many people too. That 
was when I was very poor ; it is not likely to be differ- 
ent now I am rich.” 

“ Are you very rich ? ” — a question that would have 
been impertinent were it not so silly. But I meant no 
offence, nor did she take any. 

“ I have enough for all I want or wish, my dear ; and 
after that, enough, thank God, to give to a few others 
what they want. So I pay back in my old age the debts 


22 


MISS TOMMY. 


of kindness of my youth. And I rejoice in my riches, 
even though they are often a care.” 

“ A care ! How can that be possible ? ” 

Miss Trotter turned, with a rather sad look in her 
eyes. “ Decie, if you were wearing a warm cloak, and 
saw another, or several others, standing in the cold all 
in rags, yet knew not how to amend things, would you 
not sometimes long to take off your delightful silks and 
furs ? But I am talking nonsense. All I mean to say 
is the very trite remark, * that Tye all have our cares.’ ” 
“Yes, indeed!” I reverted to mine, and bemoaned 
for the hundredth time the cruel fate which divided me 
from Charlie, and behaved, or misbehaved, myself as 
love-sick young people so constantly do, to the grief of 
their parents, the annoyance of their relations, and the 
ridicule of their friends. 

But Miss Trotter neither laughed nor was angry. A 
little quiet smile was all she indulged in. 

“ My dear, the separation is only for three years, till 
you are twenty-one and he twenty-four — no very great 
age. And some lovers have been parted for a whole 
lifetime, and had to bear it. Do you think you are the 
only person who ever suffered ? If you knew the sad 
stories — many of them love stories — that I have listened 
to for the last thirty years. Yet — I listen still.” 

“ It is very kind of you.” And it began to dawn upon 
me that she was very kind— this busy, active, maiden 
lady, with every hour of her day, every corner of her 
kindly heart, as full as it could hold — to listen to me in 
my self-absorbed grief, which seemed, in my morbid 
fancy, to be the only sorrow in the world. “But these 
others ; what has become of them all ? ” 

She answered softly, 

“ ‘ Some are married, some are dead,’ 


MISS TOMMY. 


23 


as Longfellow sings, in his ‘ Old Clock on the Stairs/ 
Life always goes on to the same tune, • Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! and sometimes, strange to say, the 
‘ never ’ creates the ‘ forever ! ’ ” 

Though I did not take in her meaning, her manner 
rather surprised me, and the voice, though calm, had a 
tone of sadness in it. Could it be that she understood, 
of her own experience, the pain I was enduring ? that 
she — this bright little middle-aged woman, so full of 
thoughts for others, living such an active, useful, happy 
life — had ever “ loved and lost ? ” There was a tradition, 
my aunt had said, that Miss Tommy Trotter had once 
been the belle of the neighborhood, and had refused at 
least twenty offers. But she was an old woman now, 
and I, with the favorite belief of the young, that the old 
never feel anything, and being preoccupied with my own 
affairs, put the question aside. A minute or Two after, 
we were both laughing so merrily at some accidental 
remark she made that I forgot all about it. 

One of Miss Tommy’s strongest characteristics was 
her keen sense of humor. Not that she was at all that 
very doubtful personage, a female wit, but she dearly 
liked to be merry, and had a talent for seeing the comic 
side of things. I one day told her she would “create a 
joke upon the ribs of death,” as Shakespeare says. 

“Well, and if I do ! ” she answered. “One must bear 
things somehow, and it is better to bear them with a 
laugh than a moan. Besides, an innocent joke is like a 
life-boat, it often carries us over the roughest seas.” 

That, I often thought, was the reason young people 
liked her company. She was so amusing, as well as 
sympathetic. She had always a cloud of girls about her 
— young men too, though there were not many at Dover. 
But, on the whole, I think she did not care for men. 


24 


MISS TOMMY , ; 


She won great deference from the other sex, but she 
never flattered them, nor was put into any great flutter 
of felicity by their attentions, as I have seen young and 
old maids too betray. Perhaps she saw their weak 
points a little too plainly to be universally adored, in 
spite of the twenty traditional wooers, of whom she was 
said never to have encouraged one. 

So time passed on. My stay extended from weeks to 
months, for I was not wanted at home ; probably, as I 
now think, they were glad to get rid of me, for I could 
not have been pleasant company to either my mother or 
my sisters. But Miss Trotter endured me — made the 
best of me. I grew stronger in health and less morbid 
in mind. Now and then, instead of weeping, I caught 
myself laughing as I had never laughed since Charlie 
went away. 

He had now been gone six months. The winter was 
over, the spring was fast coming on. In the lengthening 
twilight we used to walk up and down the shore and 
watch the sunset colors of the sea, and make plans for 
taking drives inland to see if the hedges were beginning 
to bud, and from what sheltered nooks came those bas- 
kets of primroses which little dirty girls and boys were 
daily offering to us, with a pathetic entreaty that Miss 
Trotter found irresistible, as well the little villains knew. 

“ Those primroses must be growing somewhere,” she 
would say, sententiously. “We must go and look for 
them.” 

But still we never went, for the bitter east winds — the 
one only fault of Dover — made driving difficult. We 
liked to spend every afternoon in walking up and down 
the shore, not seldom wandering on to the Admiralty 
Pier, then newly begun, to watch the workmen there, 
and to see the Calais boat come in. 


MISS TOMMY. 


25 


This was — and maybe still is — the great amusement of 
Dover, especially on rough days. Miss Tommy and I 
used to laugh over the innate cruelty of human nature in 
going to watch the landing of miserable foreigners or 
returning Britons who had been unwise enough to trust 
themselves away from our happy island. Many an “ odd 
fish ” we saw and smiled at, and many an invalid at whom 
we did not smile, for the homeward route from the East 
was then often by Calais and Dover, and everything In- 
dian had the deepest interest for me. My companion too 
— sometimes I saw her kind brown eyes fixed with the 
most earnest inquiry upon some sallow-faced, sickly pas- 
senger — perhaps a liver-tormented cross old Indian, 
burned up with years of hot climate and brandy pawnee. 
Would Charlie ever look like that ? Could I -imagine him 
with a dried-up, bronzed, unlovely face, like those faces 
which made Miss Tommy stop her harmless jokes to 
regard wistfully, even with a sort of tenderness ? 

“ I am so sorry for them,” she would say. She was 
sorry for everybody who was sick, or sad, or even 
naughty, as I sometimes told her ! And she answered 
“that sickness or sadness often made naughtiness.” Yet 
she herself was sometimes both — she was not very strong, 
as I slowly found out — but this never made her “ naughty.” 

One day — shall I ever forget it ? — a blustering March 
day, when we could hardly keep our footing, or succeed 
always in “dodging ” the sudden waves that came sweep- 
ing against the pier — over it sometimes, in a shower of 
spray — she and I went as usual to see the boat come in. 
I liked to go ; the wild weather never harmed me, and 
somehow even the sight of the ocean which divided us 
seemed to bridge over the distance between me and 
Charlie. I once said as much to my companion, and 
she answered that it was “natural.” 


26 


MISS TOMMY. 


She, too, enjoyed the sea on stormy days, so we stood 
our ground — almost the only ladies who did so — and 
watched the little dot of a boat come nearer across the 
Channel, appearing and then almost disappearing among 
the high waves — “like a human life,” Miss Trotter said 
— till it got home at last. 

She counteracted the sentimental remark by a series 
of harmless jokes, which made me laugh in spite of my- 
self. I had put my arm round her — as I did sometimes, 
being a very tall girl and she such a little woman that I 
almost thought that she would be blown away — when I 
suddenly felt her start, and saw her eyes were fixed with 
something more than curiosity on one of the passengers. 

He stood on the deck a little apart, waiting till the 
crowd at the gangway should melt away, and idly look- 
ing up at the white cliffs, as if it had been many a long 
year since he had last seen them. He was a tall gentle- 
man, tall and thin. If I say he reminded me of Don 
Quixote I mean no offence to that hero — always a great 
favorite of mine — or to this man, who looked a man 
in the best sense of the word. Gaunt and gray, and 
rather shabbily dressed, in half-military fashion, with a 
decidedly military bearing, he never could have been 
mistaken for anything but that rather rare article — “ a 
man and a gentleman.” 

Following the direction of Miss Trotter’s eyes, he at- 
tracted mine too. 

“ Who can he be ? Is he anybody you know ? ” 

“ I think so,” she answered beneath her breath. 
“ Come with me to the gangway, Decie ! you will be so 
glad.”* 

Her lips were quivering, but her smile, as she turned 
to me — I shall never forget it ! — never cease to be grate- 
ful for her kind thought of me just then. 


MISS TOMMY. 


27 


In another minute I saw her hold out her hand — “ Ma- 
jor Gordon, I believe ? ” 

Major Gordon ! Charlie’s uncle ! 

The tall gentleman started, and, perceiving us, lifted 
his hat. 

“ I am Major Gordon. But — pardon me ; my mem- 
ory often fails me.” 

He accepted, bowing, her offered hand ; he looked 
down intently into her face, without the slightest sign 
of recognition. 

“I beg your pardon — I ought to know you, and 
yet ” 

“I am Miss Trotter, Mrs. Murray’s friend. And this 
is Miss Decima Murray.” 

“ Ah, yes ! ” A light seemed to break upon him ; he 
turned to me and shook my hand warmly. Then Char- 
lie must have told him. Perhaps he had even seen 
Charlie. 

I was so delighted, that, as the children say, I “hardly 
knew whether I stood on my head or my heels.” He 
had come home, this uncle from India, who was to prove 
a sort of protecting angel to Charlie, whom probably 
he had met before he started, and who had told him to 
come and see me. He looked as if he liked me, as if 
he meant to like me — the dear old gentleman ! For he 
was an old gentleman — that is, he might be something 
between fifty and seventy ; but after forty everybody 
was “ old ” to me then. 

“ I have heard of you, Miss Murray ; I meant to come 
and see you. This chance meeting is a great pleasure 
to me, and also to find you with an old friend ” 

He turned to Miss Trotter, who stood a little aside, 
and spoke to her kindly and cordially. Evidently he 
had no feeling about the tailor-uncle, but asked after 


28 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ all the family” with a slightly hesitating air, as if try- 
ing to remember of what it had consisted, and where 
they all now were. 

Miss Trotter soon set him at ease. “ I have no rela- 
tions ; they are all dead long ago. There is only me.” 

Major Gordon shook her hand warmly again and 
again, thanking her for being “so very kind” as to re- 
member him for all these years since he had been last 
in England. “ How many years ? for really I have lost 
count. One forgets so many things — I can hardly be- 
lieve that I am again at home. And how strange to find 
one face, not to say two faces ” — he bowed and smiled 
to each of us ; a most pleasant smile, that lighted up 
his worn face into something like youthfulness — “to 
meet me with such a kindly welcome.” 

“ Luggage, sir,” cried an officious porter, just taking 
away the gangway ; and we dropped into the business 
of life again. 

He had very little luggage — surprisingly little for a 
gentleman home from India ; but then he was a soldier, 
and accustomed to rough it, as evidently he did. My 
Charlie would have been horrified at travelling with 
such a portmanteau. Major Gordon caught me looking 
at it. 

“Old and battered, like myself,” said he with a smile. 
“Never mind, it has seen good service. And now — it 
also is coming home.” 

A slight sigh, almost immediately repressed, and Ma- 
jor Gordon stood, looking around him with a half-be- 
wildered air, and faintly putting aside, with a rather 
irritable gesture, the appealing porters, or inn-touters, 
who began to gather round him. 

“Where am I going? I don’t know my good man. 
Nowhere particular. The custom-house ? yes, the 


MISS TOMMY. 


29 


custom-house — I must follow the rest. Good day — 
adieu ! and thank you, ladies.” 

But Miss Trotter came forward, with her practical, 
business-like air — she was the most thorough “woman 
of business ” I ever knew. 

“ I am a resident here, and can easily get your luggage 
examined and passed. Also, my carriage is waiting at 
the head of the pier, and if you would return and dine 
with us ” 

I hung upon his hand — he was my Charlie’s dear old 
uncle ! — and begged him to come. I was sure — quite 
sure — Miss Trotter would be glad to see him. f* Do 
come with us,” I implored; “ Do come home.” 

“ Come home ! ” he repeated, with a strange pathos 
in the words. “You are very kind,” turning to Miss 
Trotter, “and I thank you. Yes, I will come.” 

And so it befell that Major Gordon’s first day in Eng- 
land, after so many years, was spent in Miss Trotter’s 
house, with herself and me. A very pleasant day — and 
to me, at least, a real felicity. How I blessed the 
“ chance,” as I thought it (not being aware till long 
afterward that some of his friends had known he was 
daily expected in England) — the happy chance which 
brought Charlie’s uncle to Dover, and brought me to 
the Admiralty Pier at the very moment of his landing. 
Nor did he himself disguise his pleasure. An Indian 
officer, retired invalided upon half-pay, with no relations 
and no money, is not likely to have a very jubilant wel- 
come home. 

He said as much, or rather, it dropped from him un- 
awares, while sitting peacefully at our fire-side — I had 
become so much at home there that I often called it 
“ours.” But otherwise he spoke very little of himself 
or his affairs. 


3 ° 


MISS TOMMY. 


Nor, eagerly as I expected it, did he once refer to 
mine. He watched me. I felt he was “ taking stock of 
me ” — noticing every word I said, everything I did, with 
a sharp observance almost amounting to suspicion ; but 
except in answer to a question or two from Miss Trotter 
— bless her for that ! — he never mentioned Charlie. 

I should have been angry with him, except that, as he 
sat warming his long brown hands at the fire — his gray 
mustache and thin, sallow face giving him more the air 
of a Don Quixote than ever — he looked such a lonely 
man that I felt sorry for him. After a time, however, 
he brightened up and turned to Miss Trotter, who sat 
in the shadow — her little figure half buried in the depths 
of her favorite arm-chair. He began talking with her 
of old times. 

“ It was so kind of you to speak to me. I cannot im- 
agine how you recognized me, after all the years that 
have passed since we met — I forget how many.” 

“Not so very many — ten perhaps — ” 

“ And where was it I saw you last ? I ought to re- 
collect, but my memory is so bad. I am getting quite 
an old man now.” 

“At Mrs. Murray’s — just before you sailed. Also, if 
you remember, you came to see me at Crookfield — my 
father had just died.” 

“ Ah, yes, I came once, and I ought to have come 
oftener — but ” — a dark shadow crossed his face — “ my 
time was much engrossed just then.” 

Miss Trotter Said nothing, and after a minute or so 
he again recurred to her father. 

“The dear old rector — how kind he was to me when 
I was a young man ! Not so very young neither — I was 
nearly thirty, but I felt like a boy during all that fur- 
lough. How I enjoyed fishing in the rectory stream, 


MISS TOMMY. 


3i 


and making hay in the rectory meadow ? It seems all 
like a dream now — so very long ago.” 

“Yes.” 

“ But perhaps you will hardly recollect — you must 
have been such a mere child then, Miss Trotter — four- 
teen or thereabouts.” 

“Seventeen. I was older than I looked.” 

“ And you have changed very little. I could almost 
see the face of the little girl in the hay- field.” 

Was it my fancy, or a sudden red glow from the fire- 
light ? but I saw the delicate pink cheek — Miss Trotter 
had the complexion of a girl still — change to a deep 
carmine. Our guest never saw it : he was gazing absent- 
ly into the glowing coals — indeed, he had mechanically 
taken up the poker to stir them, but dropped it with a 
smile. 

“ I beg your pardon, Miss Trotter — and yet — I have 
certainly known you more than seven years.” 

She too smiled, and said gently that he need not 
apologize — she did not consider him as a stranger ; and 
then she rose and made the tea, leaving him and me to 
sit and talk. But he did not profit by the opportunity ; 
he still told me not a scrap of news about poor Charlie. 
Either he was very reticent — men are so much shyer 
about love-affairs than women — or else the time for him 
to take any interest in such things had long passed 
by. Very likely ! Whatever he had been, he was cer- 
tainly growing into an “old fogy” now. Not even a 
rich “old fogy,” as I had somehow imagined him to be. 
His clothes were decidedly shabby ; and when there 
was a talk of his going to sleep at the Lord Warden, he 
said it would be “ too expensive,” and decided with a dig- 
nified indifference that I marvelled at — so unlike Charlie! 
— to take up his quarters at a much inferior hotel. 


32 


MISS TOMMY. 


“Not that I have sunk to the ‘worst inn’s worst 
room,’ as Pope has it — how fond your father was of 
Pope, Miss Trotter ! — but I am obliged to take care of 
my pence, else my pounds would not take care of them- 
selves. And I am growing an old man now.” 

No one contradicted the fact — which indeed was only 
too true. As he sat thoughtfully twirling his gray mus- 
tache, and sometimes putting a hand upon his broad 
forehead, bald to the crown, as if to remove a certain 
feeling of confusion there, no one would have imagined 
Major Gordon anything but an old man. 

And with an old man’s peculiarity he again and 
again reverted to the days of his youth, and this pretty 
village of Crookfield, of which Miss Trotter’s father had 
been rector. 

“How long is it since you w T ere there? Is it much 
changed?” he asked. “ Everything is changing nowa- 
days — everything and everybody ; I should hardly like 
to see it again. I have never seen it but that once, since — 
let me consider — I believe not since the day your father 
married me. You know” — turning suddenly to Miss 
Trotter — “you know that my wife is dead ?” 

“ Yes.” 

Pie stated the fact — indeed, the two facts, between 
which had come such a lifelong tragedy — (I found it all 
out afterward) — merely as facts, nothing more. With 
the silent dignity which makes most men — not, alas ! 
women — cover over their domestic wounds, he wrapped 
his mantle round him, Caesar-like, hiding every drop of 
blood, every quiver of pain. He had always done it, I 
heard, and he did it still. 

But all was ended now. As we watched him from 
our wicket-gate walk down the moonlight shore — we 
had gone a few steps outside to show him the way to 


MISS TOMMY. 


33 


his hotel — upright still, and soldier-like in his bearing, 
but so thin and withered-up and melancholy-looking, 
one wondered if he had ever been young. I said as 
much to Miss Tommy. 

“ A nice old gentleman, though, but rather grim. 
No wonder they call him Don Quixote. But how any- 
body could ever say that, even in his young days, he 
was like my Charlie ” 

Miss Trotter turned, with just the shadow of sharp- 
ness in her gentle voice. “You girls are apt to make 
severe criticisms and rash judgments. Had you known 
Major Gordon in his ‘young days,’ as you call them, 
perhaps you would have thought differently. He might 
not have been exactly handsome, but there was no one 
so graceful, so courteous, such a true gentleman. Still, 
like Don Quixote, if you will,” she added, with a little 
laugh, but I saw in the moonlight that her eyes were 
glittering with tears. 

“ He certainly is very like Don Quixote now,” said I ; 

“ and what a mercy his Dulcinea is dead ! Did you 
notice he never talked about her ? Perhaps he loved 
and admired her to the last. And so they were married 
at your village ? ” 

“Yes ; she came from near there.” 

“And she was very beautiful, and he was very much 
in love with her? They went out to India and then 
they came back for a year, with the little daughter, that , 
died here, and he returned alone ? ” 

I put these facts, which I had heard, in the form of 
questions, hoping to find out more, but Miss Trotter 
merely answered, “ I believe so.” She was as reticent 
as the Major himself. Whatever she know of his affairs 
she kept in as sacred silence as he did. And there was 
no getting out of her what she did not choose to tell. 

3 


34 


MISS TOMMY. 


Small as she was, simple in her bearing and feminine in 
her manner, no one could ever take a liberty with Miss 
Tommy. 

In those days people did not rush about with the 
speed of “From London to Paris in ten hours.” Major 
Gordon, intending to rest at Dover three days, stayed 
three weeks. After so much knocking about the world 
he seemed not sorry for even a brief repose. He and 
his battered portmanteau removed from the second-rate 
hotel which he calmly affirmed was “ rather too dear for 
him,” and took up their quarters in a lodging found for 
him by Miss Trotter with a widow woman, one of her 
numerous “friends” — she had as many friends among 
the poor as the rich, and she always gave them that 
pleasant name. 

Most people are “ known by their friends,” who catch 
the reflection of themselves, more or less. Major Gor- 
don never came to us — and he came every day — with- 
out singing the praises of his excellent landlady. Mrs. 
Wilson was so “good,” so “clever,” so “kind.” He 
seemed surprised to find these qualities in a woman, 
and dwelt upon them, in the smallest trifles, with an 
earnest gratitude that would have been amusing, had it 
not been so pathetic. 

And how he did enjoy his cosey, sunshiny rooms, half- 
way up the Castle Hill ; even though on one side the 
sunshine rested on the white stones and green trees of 
an old churchyard. In front of the house was a sloping 
garden, where the birds were just beginning to build. 
There, too, he had the familiar military element to amuse 
him, for all the traffic of the Castle passed his door, and 
he would prick up his ears like an old war-horse, Mrs. 
Wilson said, at the tramp of a regiment or the music of 
a band. 


MISS TOMMY. 


35 


Major Gordon was not exactly a reading man, His 
eyes were weak, he told us ; he had once had slight 
ophthalmia in Egypt ; and his wandering, soldier’s life 
had tended to the study of men rather than of books. 
But he was a shrewd old fellow, as I soon saw. He had 
gone through the world with his eyes open, and his ob- 
servations on things and people were often very acute ; 
though with regard to himself and his own affairs he 
had the simplicity of a child. 

In fact, as I said to Miss Trotter, Charlie’s uncle 
amused me exceedingly — “he was such a queer combi- 
nation of the serpent and the dove.” I laughed with 
him and at him ; I admired him and criticised him, 
after the boldly candid fashion of young people. But 
Miss Tommy never made any comments upon him at 
all. 

As I said, instead of three days he stayed three weeks, 
before going on to London, which he seemed in no hurry 
to do. 

“ My business can stand over, and keep no one wait- 
ing ; nobody expects me,” he said one day, with a smile, 
half sad, half cynical — there was a touch of cynicism in 
many of his remarks, which always had the effect of 
making Miss Trotter silent. “All I have to do can be 
done at any time.” 

“No time like the present, as Miss Trotter would say,” 
I answered, laughing. 

“Young lady,” said the Major, turning upon me with 
a sharpness so unwanted that it actually made me start, 
“ if you had no future and no past, you would trouble 
yourself very little about the present.” 

Which seemed to be his way — a kind of indifferent 
drifting with the tide, sad to see in a man who has passed 
his prime, from whom youth’s energy has naturally de- 


3* 


MISS TOMMY. 


parted, leaving behind neither the firm resolve of mid- 
dle life nor the calm contentment of old age. 

Possibly I give my impressions of Major Gordon more 
from what I aftenvard knew of him than from what I 
first observed, for he was not one of those people who 
take you by storm — it required time and opportunity to 
find him out. We had both. He seldom missed a day 
in coming to East Cliff, though never until afternoon ; 
for Miss Trotter’s mornings were always full — mine, too, 
by the force of example, which was ten times better than 
precept. But in the lengthening spring evenings, when 
daylight began to fade, we used to see his tall, thin 
figure, with that old fur coat buttoned to the throat, ap- 
pearing in the distance down the Esplanade ; he would 
join us and walk home with us, sit down by our fireside 
“for just ten minutes,” and when he once sat down he 
never got up again. 

One could scarcely wonder at this. The bright room, 
the cosey tea-table — not your careless, come-and-go, 
afternoon tea, which had not then been invented, but 
the good old-fashioned evening meal, with the hissing 
urn, the hot muffins, the yellow marmalade and tempting 
jam, and the mistress of it all sitting at the head of her 
table, w*ith her placid, homelike smile. No wonder that 
her guest soipetimes put his cup down and regarded 
her wistfully. 

“Miss Trotter,” he said one day, “you are the most 
comfortable-looking woman I ever knew, and the clever- 
est at making other people comfortable.” 

“ Thank you,” she laughed. 

“ And I remember you were the same as a child. How 
your father used to call you his ‘ little house-mother ! ’ 
What a pity- ” He stopped ; perhaps he had been go- 

ing to say, “What a pity you were never married,” but 


MISS TOMMY. 


37 


politeness made him alter it to “What a pity more wo- 
men were not like you ! ” 

That simple, open admiration — so outspoken and free 
from all reserve — it seemed sometimes rather to wound 
its object. She always turned the conversation, as now. 

“Yes, my father had many a pleasant nickname for 
his favorites. Yours, I remember, was ‘ Bonnie Prince 
Charlie/ ” 

Major Gordon laughed heartily. “ What a misnomer ! 
The adjective should have been applied to you ; for I 
think you were the 1 bonniest ’ little girl I ever saw. It 
was a pleasure to look at you — as it is still ” — with a 
courtly bow, so completely belonging to the stately com- 
pliments of the old school that no one could be offended 
at it. 

And yet I fancied I saw that pained look again cross 
Miss Tommy’s face — the sweetest “ old lady’s ” face that 
ever was, as I thereupon declared. She made us both 
a little bow, and bade us “go on with our tea, and talk 
no more nonsense.” 

Thus we enjoyed our innocent jokes, a very happy 
trio ; or, if not happy, at least contented. If two of us 
had felt inclined to keep up the “ winter of our discon- 
tent,” it was “ made glorious summer” by the sunshiny 
nature of the third. Miss Tommy honestly declared 
that she liked to be happy ; and no one could live with 
her, as I had done all these months, without becoming, 
in a moderate and decorous degree, happy too. 

I said so to Major Gordon, one day when he and I 
were walking together, as we sometimes did, for many 
a merry mile, Miss Trotter following us in her little pony 
carriage ; for she was not strong, and often said what a 
“ thankfulness ” it was to her that, having walked so 
much in her youth, she could in her old age afford the 


38 


MISS TOMMY, 


luxury of driving. But we two were still young and active, 
she told us, and she watched us striding along through 
the pleasant lanes and sweeps of undulating country 
which lie inland, just beyond Dover town. 

We w r ere bound to St. Radegund’s Abbey, which we 
wished to show Major Gordon before he left. His de- 
parture, fixed and unfixed again several times, was finally 
settled for to-morrow ; and, the week after, so was mine. 
I too was going to London, to resume my family’s usual 
round of “ the season ; ” to be speculated upon by match- 
making mothers, criticised by ugly sisters, and flirted 
with by undesirable younger brothers, to my mother’s 
great alarm. No need ! My heart was bound up in my 
absent Charlie. 

His uncle had told me nothing about him. Our affair, 
if he knew it, and I could not help fancying he did know, 
was apparently of no importance to him — a mere speci- 
men of the “ calf-love ” which 1 had more than once 
heard him contemptuously refer to in conversation. The 
“ tender passion ” was clearly not in his line. He treated 
me much like any other young lady — politely, pater- 
nally, but without showing any special interest in me or 
recognizing my possible -future tie to himself. Now I, 
though sometimes he vexed me by the stolidity with 
which he ignored all my “ fishing questions,” having all 
one aim — Charlie — I could not help feeling a deep in- 
terest in him and a sense of regret at his departure, which 
surprised myself. 

‘‘ What is there in some people that, though we are 
glad to see them, w r e never miss them ; while others, 
whenever they go away, they leave a large hole behind ? ” 

I had said this to Miss Tommy as she was tying on 
her bonnet for our expedition ; and I happened to catch 
in the glass the reflection of her face. Such a mournful 


MISS TOMMY. 


39 


expression it had, with its wide eyes that saw nothing, 
and its close-set mouth, as if fixed for the endurance of 
an eternal want, a perpetual pain. 

It haunted me all through the walk, though whenever 
she passed us her face was dressed in smiles — so much 
so that Major Gordon said : 

“What a very happy woman Miss Trotter seems to 
be ! a great deal happier perhaps, than if she had been 
married.” 

Which was one of many severe remarks on the mar- 
ried state which continually fell from him, inclining me 
to rise up and do battle with him, except that he had 
the advantage of me, and of Miss Trotter too, in having 
been married. But, as she said to me once, there are 
two kinds of cynics — those who do not believe at all, 
and those who believe so intensely that they will accept 
nothing short of absolute truth — absolute perfection. 
Was that the reason she had never married ? 

Arrived at St. Radegund’s, I took out my sketch-book 
— Charlie had a fancy for art, and had given me once 
some lessons, so of course I stuck to my drawing valor- 
ously. I had talked to Charlie’s uncle as long as I 
could, but still he was an “old fogie the young and 
old have not many points in common, and after a while 
find one another’s society a trifle dull. Now, elderly 
folk do not seem to mind dulness, but can go on to- 
gether, as I have known Major Gordon and Miss Trotter 
do, for ever so long, without exchanging a dozen words. 

They did so now. After we had examined the ruins, 
and speculated on the departed St. Radegund, who, I 
believe, was a lady abbess, and this her convent ; but 
really I felt little interest in her, a long dead and buried 
woman, while I was a living woman, oh ! so keenly, 
painfully alive ! I left my two respected seniors to 


40 


MISS TOMMY. 


their mutual society, and took refuge in my own, which 
was much more interesting. Soon I had settled my- 
self in a secluded corner to make my sketch, and think 
of Charlie. 

Both these useful occupations had absorbed me for a 
good half-hour, when I heard voices behind me ; there 
was a broken wall between, and they evidently did not 
know I was there. Indeed, they were in such earnest 
talk — those two worthy friends of mine — that I should 
not have troubled myself about them, any more than 
they about me, had I not, after a minute or so, caught 
Charlie’s name. 

“Yes, he is a real good fellow, that nephew of mine ! 
I only wish I could be a better uncle and godfather to 
him; but I have littie influence and no money. Be- 
sides, he is in the queen’s service, and I in ‘John Com- 
pany’s.’ His only way of getting promotion is by pur- 
chase. If I had the money I once made — you know I 
never was extravagant, and I did hope to keep enough 
to be comfortable in my old age, and perhaps have a 
trifle for Charlie — well, it is gone, and there is little use 
in speaking about it.” 

“ No.” There was something strangely pathetic in 
these monosyllables of Miss Trotter’s, which implied 
and concealed so much, Her soft “No” and “Yes” — 
I can almost hear them still ! 

“ You are right. Let bygones be bygones. That has 
always been my principle and practice. The loss of the 
money was not my fault, only my misfortune. With 
my small needs I can do without it. And now about 
Charlie.” 

Was I mean ? I think I was ; yet the impulse to lis- 
ten was irresistible. For three weeks I had been kept 
on the tenter-hooks of suspense ; not a word, good, bad, 


MISS TOMMY. 


4i 


or indifferent, did his uncle say of my poor Charlie. 
Of course, the ideal and honorable thing just now would 
have been a good loud cough ! But that might have 
perplexed them. Indeed, I had already heard a little 
too much, for it was easy to guess that Major Gordon’s 
“ misfortune ” was his wife. I made this excuse to my- 
self at the time for doing what I did. Well, I did it, 
and there’s an end. 

“ Charlie, poor lad ! Well, he may be a great fool — 
a young man in love usually is — but he is an honest fool. 
He told me everything, and made me promise to go and 
see his young lady as soon as I reached England. This 
was the cause of my inflicting myself so long on your 
kindness, Miss Trotter.” 

“ I perceive.” 

“ It was my only chance Of finding out what stuff the 
girl was made of. Not a bad sort of girl. As you say, 
Charlie might have done worse ; but he would have 
done better not to have got into the entanglement at all.” 

Entanglement ! Charlie’s devotion to me an “entan- 
glement ! ” I was furious, first at Major Gordon and 
then at Miss Trotter. What could these two old idiots 
know about love — such love as mine and Charlie’s ? 

After a pause I heard the latter say gently, “ What is 
your objection ? ” 

“ First and foremost — she has money.” 

Was it my fancy, or a real tremble in her voice, as 
Miss Trotter answered, “ Few people besides yourself 
would count that an objection. Why ?” 

“ Can you ask ? when Charlie has not a halfpenny ! 
No, no ; a man with proper pride would never have 
dreamed of such a thing.” 

“ Is not that rather hard for Decie ? When she her- 
self is worth much more than her fortune ? ” 


42 


MISS TOMMY. 


And then my dear Miss Tommy spoke up for me, 
warmly, kindly, generously, until I felt myself blushing 
to the ears, and wished with all my heart I ‘had been 
half as good as she thought me. 

“We will let that pass," replied Major Gordon in his 
most worldly tone ; he was both worldly and matter-of- 
fact sometimes, or liked to appear so. “ My dear Miss 
Trotter, you always believe the very best of everybody. 
Yet the girl is a good girl enough ; but how do we 
know what sort of a woman she will turn out ? Many 
a man is deceived by a pretty face ; he marries it, and 
learns afterward to loathe it. A handsome girl — a girl 
with money ; how can you tell that she will not grow 
into an arrant flirt — a married flirt, the worst of all — or 
a scolding, extravagant jade, or some of those delightful 
forms of the genus woman that we sometimes see in 
India? Never in England, of course;” and I could 
imagine the Major’s courteous, deprecatory bow. 
Though I heard also his bitter laugh, which negatived 
it. 

And after a minute I heard the sweet pleading voice : 
“We need not talk; it is enough, generally, to act. 
What can be done for these foolish young people ? 
They are very fond of one another.” 

“ Fond ? — as a child is fond of a stick of sugar-candy. 
Take it away and they will soon get over it. Best that 
they should get over it.” 

“Are you sure of that ?” 

“ Quite sure. A man who marries young is a fool ; 
if he marries late in life he often takes the crooked 
stick and repents it till death. The wisest man is he 
who never marries at all. And so I said to my nephew 
Charlie.” 

“And he said ” 


MISS TOMMY. 


43 


“The usual thing ! Did any young man in love ever 
listen to anybody’s advice, or feel anything but hatred 
to the prudent parent or friend that stood between him 
and his madness ? ” 

“ Have you done this ? ” 

“ Not at all. My bark is worse than my bite, I as- 
sure you. I only told him he was a very great fool, 
and that I could not help him in the least. Had I been 
a rich man now, I might have been a fool too, for I like 
the lad — I might have bought his promotion, and sent 
him home in three years, a colonel perhaps, to marry 
Miss Decie, supposing she is still true to him, which is 
not over likely. Could any girl of nineteen keep true 
for a twelvemonth to any man ? ” 

Miss Trotter made no answer, and Major Gordon 
went on to thank her for her interest in his nephew. 

“ And he really is a good fellow, who will work his 
way and get promotion — also gray hairs. Miss Murray 
will by that time be the happy wife of an earl or a mil- 
lionnaire. Your rich people generally marry money — 
carrying coals to Newcastle. I hope, by-the-bye, that 
Mrs. Murray will not suspect me of doing anything to 
forward my nephew’s cause by my visit here ? ” 

“ I will take care she shall not.” 

“And, Miss Trotter, do not imagine I think ill of 
your young protegee , who is most fortunate in having 
you for her friend. She is a very pleasant person ; she 
might make a good wife ; and, if I could earn money 

enough to buy Charlie’s promotion Do you think 

anybody would give work — paying work — to a broken- 
down old soldier ? ” 

He said this with a laugh, but evidently meant it — an 
intention so kindly that I forgave him a good deal ; for- 
gave too the answer by which Miss Trotter negatived it. 


44 


MISS TOMMY. 


“I think it is the young who ought to work. The 
old should take rest; they need it, and deserve it.” 

“ But you — you never seem to rest ? You are busy 
from morning till night, chiefly for other people. You 
are able to throw yourself out of yourself in the most 
marvellous way. You think of everybody ; does any- 
body ever think of you ? Nay, here am I, keeping you 
standing discussing Charlie’s affairs and my own, when 
you ought to be sitting in your carriage. Where is it ? 
Shall I go and fetch it ?” 

“ If you please.” 

I heard him stride away — heard her creep forward 
and sit down on a stone — a broken pillar. The bent 
little figure, the hands tight-clasped on her lap, the 
head drooped down as in patient acquiescence under a 
long-familiar burden — I can see her still, my dear Miss 
Tommy ! 

But just then I saw nothing but myself, and my own 
indignation, which at last boiled over. I startled her by 
my sudden appearance. 

“ Miss. Trotter, you must drive me home. I will not 
walk back with Major Gordon. I have heard — I don’t 
care whether I was right or wrong — but I overheard, 
accidentally, every word he has been saying to you 
about me and Charlie. And — I hate him ! ” 

Whereupon I burst at once into a storm of tears. 

Miss Trotter rose and came beside me. I felt my hand 
taken, with a firm, soft clasp, which calmed me in spite 
of all my wrath. 

“ My dear, they say listeners never hear any good of 
themselves, but you cannot have heard much harm. And 
people are often mistaken without being actually wrong. 
We need not ‘hate ’ them. We should rather be sorry 
for them.” 


MISS TOMMY. 


45 


“ I am not sorry for him at all — the hard, worldly- 
minded, mean old fellow.” 

Here a little hand was laid upon my mouth. 

“Not mean — he never could be mean. And you 
never could speak ill of Charlie’s uncle. He is fond of 
Charlie.” 

.1 looked down in her face with its soft, pale smile — 
not till now had I noticed how exceedingly pale she was 
— and it seemed to comfort me. 

“I can’t imagine how it is that you understand every- 
body’s troubles, and have a cheering word to say to 
everybody. It must be because you are so happy and 
have had such an easy life.” 

“ Must it ? Well never mind. Dry your tears, Decie 
— an April shower on an April day, for indeed it is no 
more. Look, there comes the carriage, and Major 
Gordon, carrying a great bunch of primroses. Does that 
look ‘ worldly-minded ? ’ Forgive him my dear. Take no 
notice of anything. Do your best — and leave the rest.” 

I obeyed her. I received Major Gordon and his floral 
offering — which he presented to me with the air of a 
knight of the Middle Ages — without betraying any 
grudge against him. Nay, I even walked home with 
him, conversing in the most amicable manner on the 
beauties of spring, and the pity it was to waste May 
mornings and June evenings in the follies of the London 
season, just as if I had never “hated ” him at all. 

It was impossible indeed to hate him long. There 
was such an extraordinary sweetness about him — that 
mixture of sweetness and strength which in a man is so 
fascinating, at any age. Charlie had it in degree ; but 
I must confess I never saw it so strongly marked in any 
man as in Charlie’s uncle, despite his bald crown and 
gray hairs. 


46 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ He might almost win a woman’s heart yet,” I said 
to Miss Trotter, after he had departed that night, bid- 
ding us a rather lingering good-bye, for he was to start 
at eight next morning. He seemed quite uncertain when 
he should come back, if he came back at all. “ Perhaps 
he may find some rich widow who would take him, 
oddities and all, or some benevolent and eager-to-be- 
married old ” 

I stopped, ashamed, for I had ceased to laugh at old 
maids since I had known Miss Tommy. Though no one 
could be less like the received type of an old maid than 
she was, with her lovely old face, so peaceful and smil- 
ing, her contented air, and her universal and most 
motherly tenderness, especially over the young. 

“ Some ‘ unappropriated blessing,’ which is the polite 
term for an unmarried woman,” said she, with a gentle 
smile. “ No, I do not think Major Gordon is likely to 
marry. But he might have a long and useful life yet. 
I trust he will have. He deserves it.” 

She rose and took up his gloves — such an old and 
shabby pair ! which he had left behind on his favorite 
arm-chair — the Major’s chair we had got to call it ; it 
looked sad and erppty now. 

. “We will send them after him when we know where 
he has gone to,” she said, and folded them up and laid 
them carefully in a drawer. 

That night she w T ent to bed rather early — we had got 
into a habit of sitting “four feet on a fender ” over the 
dying fire till midnight — and she looked very tired all 
next day. But she said she had to do double duty con- 
sequent on yesterday’s idleness, so went about as usual, 
while I busied myself in preparing for my melancholy 
departure. 

I had not thought till I came to leave her how sorry I 


MISS TOMMY. 


4 1 


should be to do it — how I should miss her genial smile, 
her ceaseless care and thought for me. That busy life 
seemed still to have room for everything and everybody. 

“Good-byes are sore things,” I said, thinking sorrow- 
fully of mine with Charlie ; of which Miss Trotter might 
have been thinking too, for she answered : 

“And yet it is something to have the right to grieve 
— to know that the grief is mutual— to feel that the 
parting is not indefinite. There are those who have 
none of these consolations, yet they have to bear the 
same pang. Some partings are like death itself, only 
without its peace.” 

I looked up from my packing, for she spoke with keen 
sympathy, even emotion. 

“ Yes, there must be some poor young creatures even 
more miserable than I and Charlie.” 

“ I and Charlie,” “Charlie and me!” I wonder she 
was not sick of that perpetual chorus of egotistical woe, 
which I, like many another foolish girl, inflicted upon 
my affectionate friends — at least upon this friend. She 
insisted that I should “keep myself to myself” with 
other people ; especially with my family, who, I shrewd- 
ly suspected, would not stand as much as she did. I 
should have henceforth to conceal my sorrows, or try 
and rise superior to them, and make myself as happy as 
I could, with Charlie away ; which seemed a sort of in- 
fidelity to Charlie. 

When I said so, Miss Tommy smiled. 

“ My dear, young people in love always think it a 
duty to be miserable. By and by they learn a higher 
duty — that if you are not happy yourself you have the 
more need to make other people happy. The weakest, 
the most unchristian thing a woman can do, or a man 
either, is to die of a broken heart.” 


4 8 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ Yet people have died.” 

“ And lived — which is harder. But what nonsense 
we ate talking ! You will not die broken-hearted after 
parting with me, my dear,” and she laughed her own 
merry laugh. “ And for Charlie, I would advise you 
for the next three months at least, not to say a word 
about Charlie. You may think of him all the same, you 
know.” 

“ Don’t laugh at me.” 

“I am not laughing. I want you to think of him. I 
hope you will keep true to him ; for one real love, be it 
ever so sad, is better than twenty ‘ fancies,’ or a hundred 
‘ flirtations.’ ” 

“Thank you— thank you; you are not like Major 
Gordon. You believe in me ; you do not think I shall 
ever forget Charlie.” 

“No.” 

We stood at the wicket-gate for a breath of the salt 
sea, just to refresh us before bedtime. The moonlight 
nights were over ; but through the clear darkness we 
could trace the beautiful curve of the bay, studded with 
its ring of lights— the incoming tide, heard rather than 
seen, on the one hand, and the dim outline of white 
cliffs on the other. How many a night we had walked 
up and down, the two of us — latterly the three — and 
now it was all come to an end. 

“You will have to take your walks alone,” I said. 

“Yes ; I am used to it.” 

That phrase, with its infinite pathos ! I did not no- 
tice it then, nor understand it ; I was too young to have 
“got usecf” to anything. But I somehow felt my heart 
yearn toward the solitary woman. Any unmarried 
woman must be solitary, I thought. I put my arms 
round her and kissed- her, not as g. mere salutation, but 


MISS TOMMY. 


49 


with the warm kisses of youth, as I used to kiss Charlie 
(no ! let me correct myself, as Charlie used to kiss me). 
She kissed me back again, with, to my surprise, a great 
sob ; and then and there in the silent starlight, to my 
still greater surprise, she — like the people in the Bible 
— “ fell on my neck and wept.” My dear Miss Tommy ! 


3 


PART II. 


Charlie Gordon did come back at the three years’ 
end ; and, despite his uncle’s prophecy, he did find me 
true, and not married either to an earl or a millionnaire. 
1 will not say that I had not been asked ; but that is 
neither here nor there, and, as Miss Trotter once ob- 
served, the less a woman says about her rejected lovers 
the better. 

She — my dear Miss Tommy — happened to be sitting 
with me when Charlie suddenly appeared. 

It was the day after my twenty-first birthday, which, 
though lively enough, I cannot say was very happy. 
But I tried hard to make it so ; for I had by this time 
learned my lesson — the lesson first taught me by her 
dear old self in her pretty house at Dover, during the 
peaceful three months when she “took me in ” — me, al- 
most a “stranger” — and returned me back to my par- 
ents healed in body and mind. At least I was so much 
better that I endured the ensuing three years without 
making myself unendurable to my family, as is the way 
with so many young people who have been “ crossed in 
love.” Much pity I have for them, poor things ! — the 
'tender pity that Miss Tommy had for me ; but my pity 
never blinds me, as it never blinded her, to the truth of 
the matter, namely, that to waste one’s life, with all its 
duties, all its blessings — and few lives are void of the lat- 
ter, none of the former — to sacrifice it on the shrine of 
any one human being, is, as some statesman said of a 
great political error, “worse than a crime — a blunder.” 


MISS TOMMY. 


51 

And had I for those three years made myself and my 
family utterly miserable on Charlie’s account, I should 
certainly have committed a great blunder ; for I . should 
have taught them to despise me and hate him — hate my 
dear Charlie, the best, nicest, pleasantest— but I will not 
forestall things. 

On my birthday — which was rather an important date, 
since on coming of age I inherited some money from an 
old great-aunt — I had all my own people about me : my 
married brothers and their families, my two elder sis- 
ters, both engaged and making “ excellent matches ” — • 
to my mother’s great delight. For me, I would not have 
married either of my brothers-in-law elect for the world ! 
But I was very civil to them, and took with composure 
the jokes about my “unattached” condition, without a 
single creature to pay me attention either in the house 
or at the birthday ball. Instead, I occupied myself with 
paying attention to my dear Miss Tommy, who, though 
I had not been allowed to visit her again, was always 
considered in the family as my particular friend, and in- 
vited to our house whenever I desired it. 

Not since that pleasant fortnight which I spent with 
him had I again seen Major Gordon. My family met 
him once in society, and — by all accounts — gave him 
so unmistakably the “cold shoulder” that I scarcely 
wondered he had left unfulfilled his promise of coming 
to see me when he was “settled ” in London. But pos- 
sibly he never had settled anywhere ; for I had heard 
nothing of him until quite lately, when, in answer to my 
questions, Miss Trotter said that in an accidental letter 
which she had received from him he “ inquired kindly” 
after me. 

This was all. She evidently wished to say as little as 
possible about the Gordons — uncle and nephew — which 


5 2 


MISS TOMMY. 


did not contribute to the happiness of my birthday. 
But, I reflected, no doubt she felt bound in honor to tell 
me nothing about Charlie, and perhaps after all she had 
very little to tell. For when I communicated to her the 
only news which had reached me of Major Gordon — how 
some mutual friend had met him in the city looking very 
shabby, worn, and old — she seemed both surprised and 
pained. 

But to return to me and Charlie. By-the-bye, it was 
a creditable novelty in me to “ return ” to Charlie, in- 
stead of making him, as aforetime, the one sole subject 
of my conversation. He appeared, as I have said, the 
very day after my birthday. We were sitting among the 
debris of the ball, in the dulness of tired-out folk, when 
the footman suddenly announced “Colonel Gordon.” 

“ It must be a mistake — and mamma and the girls are 
out,” I said to Miss Trotter ; but she only smiled. 

“ It’s you, miss, that the young gentleman asks for,” 
said our old John, with a grin — well he knew Charlie in 
the old days ! “ And he told me to say Colonel Gordon.” 

So in he walked, as composedly as if he had been the 
fairy prince come to demand the hand of the beautiful 
princess, which he did within an hour or two, of her 
astounded parents ! 

There was no reason why he should not. He was no 
longer Mr., but Colonel, Gordon. A lucky battle (alas! 
that we should call it so) had promoted him — had en- 
abled him to come home in time to keep his tryst with 
me, and to. “ come forward,” as the phrase goes, with 
dignity and independence, to ask me of my father. 

We sat together in the little boudoir, hand-in-hand, 
like children ; sat and cried for joy — kissing one another 
between whiles, also like children ; for there was no one 
near except JMiss Trotter, knitting energetically in the 


MISS TOMMY. 


53 


big drawing-room. I introduced Charlie to her, saying 
she was a friend of his uncle ; but he did not seem to 
have heard of her or to think much about her. In truth, 
poor dear fellow ! at that moment he thought of nothing 
but me ; and declared he had thought of nothing but 
me all the time he had been parted from me. Which I 
hope was true. At any rate, I saw no reason to doubt 
it. 

“ A colonel’s pay is not a fortune, my Decie, but it is 
quite equal to what you have, and so my pride is satis- 
fied — my uncle’s too. He met me when I reached Lon- 
don yesterday. We had a long talk, and though he did 
not exactly advise me to Come here to-day, he did not 
object to it. He said he liked you very much, and that 
if I must be so foolish as to marry, perhaps I had bet- 
ter marry you ; and so ” 

Here Charlie ended his sentence in another but equal- 
ly satisfactory way. Oh, dear me ! how foolish we are 
when we are young, and yet how sweet is the folly ! 

And then he told me confidentially a remarkable fact 
— which there was no need to make a matter of public 
talk — that when he came home he found lying at the 
banker’s a large sum of money, which, added to his 
colonel’s pay, would give an income sufficient to . enable 
us to marry at once. It had been paid into the bank 
anonymously — by whom, he had not the remotest idea. 

This latter fact was rather “ uncomfortable,” he 
owned, and I agreed with him ; still it did not strike me 
as wonderful that anybody should do anything for Char- 
lie ; and among his numerous friends probably there 
was one who had a fancy for secret benevolence. 

I thought at first it was my uncle, but found the 
dear old fellow knew nothing at all about the matter, of 
which I was very glad, for though he declares he is not 


54 


MISS TOMMY. 


poor, that no gentleman is poor who knows the extent 
of his income and lives within it, still he must have 
great trouble to make ends meet. And he ought to 
have more comforts than he has, an old man like him — 
better clothes, better food, and perhaps some one to do 
his writing and reading for him : his sight is not good, 
though from long habit he manages extremely well. 
He is at once very independent and very helpless — poor 
Uncle Gordon ! ” 

Here Miss Trotter, who had sat in the background 
absorbed in her knitting, looked up. (I had told Char- 
lie he need not mind her ; she knew all about us, and 
would play propriety in the most harmless way till my 
mother came home.) 

“ Has Major Gordon changed his address ? Will you 
give it to me ? I am an old friend of his/’ 

Charlie bowed. He admired pretty women of all 
ages ; and I could see he was quite taken by the sweet- 
looking little old lady. 

“Who in the world is she ? Trotter? Not Trotters 
the army-tailors ? ” 

I stopped his whispers with the severest of frowns, 
made him write down the address of his uncle’s new 
lodgings — it was in a very shabby and dreary London 
street — and gave it to Miss Tommy. Shortly afterward 
she made some excuse and left us together, which was, 
we both agreed, the very kindest thing she could do. 

So it was all soon arranged, for Charlie was one who 
never allowed any grass to grow under his feet. He 
was determined, and so was I. We had both an inde- 
pendent income, small, but sufficient ; and we were 
young and strong enough to “rough it” a little if nec- 
essary. Though it scarcely would be necessary, as, to 
my mother’s great relief, the regiment was coming home, 


MISS TOMMY. 


55 


so that Charlie would have, for the present at least, no 
more fighting, nor would my parents lose their young- 
est darling. 

I was their darling, I felt ; and they had meant me no 
harm, nor done it either, by insisting on the temporary 
separation between my lover and me. It had only made 
us the worthier, and, if possible, the dearer to one an- 
other. True love is all the truer for being tried. 

When, next day, I received the congratulations of our 
mutual families — though his consisted only of his uncle, 
for his only living relative, a married sister, lived in the 
far north of Scotland — I think my Charlie’s fiancee was 
the happiest girl in the world. Far happier than if I 
had at once got what I wanted, and oh ! a thousand 
times happier than if I had withstood or disobeyed my 
parents, sulked with my brothers and sisters, and made 
myself generally disagreeable at home — the dear famil- 
iar home which would be mine now for so very short a 
time. Another home might be fuller,, wider, brighter ; 
but there is something in the innocent girl-life, free 
from cares and responsibilities, safe hidden in the warm 
nest, and cherished under the soft, motherly wing — 
something which a girl never gets again in all her days, 
and never thoroughly understands or appreciates till it 
is hers no more forever. 

Yet, as I said to Miss Tommy, for once in my life 
quoting poetry, 

“ Love is sweet, 

Given or returned — ” 

to which she only answered, “Yes”— her usual gentle 
“Yes.” But she kissed me fondly. I am sure she was 
glad in her inmost heart to see me so happy. 

And, looking back through many years, through “ all 


56 


MISS TOMMY. 


the chances and changes of mortal life,” as the prayer- 
book has it, I can remember vividly that day, and feel 
that it was good to be happy. I can see myself sitting 
in my usual place at the family dinner-table, beside my 
father, but with Charlie on my other side, an accepted 
lover, and both of us, we flattered ourselves, sustaining 
our new position with dignity and grace. Still we were 
both a little nervous — I am sure I was— and it was quite 
a relief that there were no strangers present, except two 
who could hardly be called such — Miss Trotter and 
Major Gordon. 

They happened to sit together at the other end of^the 
table, for my mother had, of course, been taken in to 
dinner by Charlie’s uncle, and my father — he was a little 
distrait , poor man, and no wonder! — had forgotten Miss 
Tommy. She would have had to walk in alone, had not 
Major Gordon, ever courteous, turned and given her his 
other arrrf. 

So the two old acquaintances w T ere placed side by 
side, which they seemed to enjoy, for they talked a 
good deal. And, as I noticed to Charlie (it was such a 
comfort to have Charlie to tell everything to once more !), 
his uncle grew less solemn and Don Quixotish — as who 
would not under the sunshiny influence of my dear Miss 
Tommy? (N.B. I never called her that to her face, 
but she knew we often did sb behind her back ; nor do 
I think she disliked it — she once told me that her fa- 
ther’s pet name for her was always “ Tommy.”) 

As I sat in my usual place, radiant in my new happi- 
ness, with all my dear ones about me, and especially the 
dearest of all, more than once I caught Miss Trotter’s 
glance Pandering toward me with a wistful tenderness 
almost amounting to sadness, and I wondered, with a 
sudden flash of intuition, born of my deep bliss, what 


MISS TOMMY. 


57 


her youth had been, whether she had ever known, even 
for a brief moment, the felicity which, thoughtless as I 
was in these early days, I thought of with a sigh of con- 
tent, saying with old King David, “ My cup runneth 
over.” 

“lam glad to see Major Gordon here,” whispered I 
to Charlie. “ He looks a good deal older since I saw 
him first. I wonder what he was like as a young man ? ” 
“They say he was like me.” (To which I responded 
indignantly, “ Oh no ! ”) “ But he would not be an ill- 

looking fellow, poor Uncle Gordon, if only he would 
spruce himself up a bit, as he has done to-day, for the 
credit of the family. He is not vain, but he is most 
awfully proud. Would you believe it, he is vexing his 
very life out because he cannot discover the anonymous 
friend to whom I owe that money, and he cannot bear 
being indebted to any human being. I think he is more 
angry than grateful. Now, I am very grateful.” 

And so was I, without perplexing myself about the 
matter, which, however, Major Gordon did not refer to 
at all \ but whenever he fell into fits of silence or ab- 
straction, as was not seldom, Charlie whispered, “ He is 
worrying himself about the money, poor old dear ! ” 

The “old dear,” however, was very benignant to me, 
informing Charlie that “ he had always liked me.” 
Though a little stately and formal, not at all like the 
“ gay Gordons ” of the ballad, which I took care to 
quote to Charlie — 

“He turned about lightlie, as the Gordons does a’, 

I thank you, Leddy Jean, my love’s promised ava” — 

still, taking him altogether, I confessed, and after he 
had left my mother confessed also, that Major Gordon 
was not an uncle to be ashamed of. 


58 


MISS TOMMY. 


It sounded odd to call him major and his nephew 
colonel ; but he did not seem to mind it, they being in 
different services. Besides, as I heard him say to Miss 
Trotter, what did it matter ? “his day was done.” A sad 
remark, to which she made no answer ; but as he turned 
away, I saw her eyes follow him with a long, wistful 
look — which opened mine. 

I was only one-and-twenty, and she — well ! I had 
never heard exactly how old she was ; but there are 
some people and some things which never grow old. 
From that minute there dawned upon me an idea, which 
I had the good sense and delicacy to keep entirely to 
myself, but which furnished me with a clue to many mys- 
teries — even to.that grand mystery of Charlie’s money. 
And so, perhaps, I was the only person not surprised 
when, two days after, as we ladies were all sitting in the 
morning-room, there came a message that Major Gordon 
was below, and “wished to speak to Miss Trotter for 
five minutes on business.” 

“Do not be frightened, Decie ; I know what it is,” 
said she, taking my hand — hers was cold and nervously 
trembling ; but she sat still and said no more. 

Major Gordon walked into the room, looking more 
than ever “ as if he had swallowed a poker,” my sisters 
said. He exchanged a few civilities with my mother, 
and then, as she was leaving the room, stopped her. 

“ Do not go, Mrs. Murray ; I have no secrets with 
Miss Trotter. The ‘business ’ I wished to speak to her 
about is public enough — only too public. I should 
prefer you all hearing the question I have the pleasure, 
or pain, of putting to her, and which I trust she will 
answer candidly.” 

Miss Tommy looked up full in his face. It was a look 
quite different from that she bestowed on any of us. In 


MISS TOMMY. 


59 


it was something at once sad, earnest, yet restful — some- 
thing of a child’s look, diffident and hesitating, but full 
of trust, reminding me of what she had once said of him, 
that if he had one quality more than another, it was re- 
liableness. 

“ I will speak at once and resolve my doubts,” he said, 
crossing over to her. “ Miss Trotter, the unknown friend 
who placed that large sum to my nephew’s credit at his 
banker’s was, I have reason to believe, yourself. Am I 
right ? ” 

She grew crimson all over, then paled again, and said 
gently, almost deprecatingly : “Yes, it was I.” 

“ And why did you do it ? ” 

“Ah, Major Gordon ! ” I cried, reproachfully, and ran 
to embrace my dear Miss Tommy in a burst of gratitude, 
but she softly put me aside. 

“ Why should I not do it ? I have no one to spend 
my money upon, or leave it to — neither husband, child, 
nor near relation. I. chose to do this, and I think I was 
justified in doing it.” 

She spoke with a mingled dignity and pathos which 
could not fail to strike anybody. It seemed to strike 
Major Gordon, and remind him that in his pride he had 
a little failed of courtesy : gratitude, I suppose, could 
not have been expected from him. 

“ Forgive me. I acknowledge your generosity ; but 
there are two sides to the subject, ours and yours. It is 
hard enough for us, poor as we are — my nephew and I 
— to be connected with a wealthy family by marriage ; 
but it is harder still, it is almost humiliating, to be in- 
debted to ” 

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Miss Trotter; and 
her voice had a quiver of keen pain. “ You are not in- 
debted to me, Major Gordon. What I did I did for the 


6o 


MISS TOMMY. 


sake of this little girl here, and for a young man who, 
by what I have learned — and I took some pains to find 
out all about him — deserves every good thing that 
Fortune can bestow. For me, I am merely a tool in 
the hands of Fortune, or Providence, to make two peo- 
ple happy. There is not so much of happiness in this 
world that I or any one need regret the deed." 

The words were a little sad, but the smile was so 
sunny that even Major Gordon must have been a stone 
to resist it. He extended his hand, and clasped hers 
warmly. 

“You are a good woman, an exceedingly good woman ; 
and my nephew is fortunate in having your esteem — 
your — patronage, shall I say ? No, your kind offices. 
I hope he will be grateful to you — I think he will.” 

“He ought to be!” cried my mother, warmly. She 
had no pangs of wounded pride, and her practical mind 
at once leaped to the obvious conclusion that so affec- 
tionate and wealthy a friend — an old maid, too — implied 
a very comfortable future for Charley and me. “ But, 
my dear Miss Trotter, how well you kept the secret, 
and what a romantic idea to take into your head ! ” 

“Not at all!” laughing in her old, pleasant way. 
“ May not a woman do as she likes with her own ? an 
unmarried woman especially. That is the advantage 
we have over you British matrons ; there is no one to 
argue with us, no one to contradict us. Besides” — here 
she took a graver tone, and (I thought) turned more 
toward Major Gordon as she spoke — “ I am rich now, 
but I was poor once, very poor. It teaches me to un- 
derstand poverty. I mean” — and now she addressed 
him directly— “that you must disabuse your nephew’s 
mind of any idea of obligation to me. I am merely 
paying back in my old age the debts of my youth. Do 


MISS TOMMY. 


61 


not speak of the matter again. Forget it. Will you 
promise me this ? ” 

She laid her hand on his coat sleeve — a rather shabby 
sleeve. Now, in full daylight, any eye — certainly a 
woman’s — might have detected sad evidences that he 
had no Woman to take care of him : frayed wristbands, 
holes in gloves, buttons missing from shirt-fronts, etc. 
Poor Major Gordon ! 

“ I do promise ! ” he said, with much feeling ; and, 
taking up the little hand, he kissed it in knightly fash- 
ion before us all — an action so sudden, so unlike what 
one would have expected of him that I did not wonder 
to see her start. But the expression of her dear old 
face was less of pleasure than pain. 

Major Gordon soon left, saying, in his usual formal 
manner, “that he Would now go in search of his 
nephew, explain to him this discovery, and send him 
to offer his own acknowledgments to his benevolent 
friend,” indicating Miss Trotter by a stately bow, which 
forced me to clasp her round the neck in a fervor of 
enthusiasm. 

“Isha’n’t call you my ‘benevolent friend,’” ex- 
claimed I, half crying, half laughing. “ I love you ; 
that is all.” 

“ And that is enough,” she answered, stroking my hair 
in a fond way she had. Shortly afterward she went to 
her own room, whence she did not emerge for some 
hours. 

Next day she bade us adieu, and departed from our 
large, merry household to her own solitary home. 

My mother declared she could not possibly stand 
three weddings at once, and that Charlie and I must 
wait a little, which I was not sorry to do. I liked to 
prolong the sweetness of the courtship time; indeed, as 


62 


MISS. TOMMY. 


I confided to Miss Tommy, I would not have minded 
ever so long an engagement now that I really belonged 
to Charlie, and could be a comfort to him in all things, 
as he to me. And she answered that I was right. 
“True love was always true, whether or not it ever 
ended in marriage ” — a sentiment in which Charlie did 
not wholly agree with her. 

But he did agree with her, and so did I, in protesting 
against a grand wedding like my sisters’, with three 
clergymen to tie the knot, and twelve bridesmaids to 
“assist” at the performance, which was a real “ per- 
formance,” and went off admirably. But I would have 
preferred being married in a cotton gown, with the 
pew-opener for my bridesmaid. 

When I said this, however, Miss Tommy laughed, and 
declared I was going a step too far ; that there were 
certain duties we owed to society ; and, for her part, 
she thought it might be a pleasant thing to be married 
with all one’s family about one. 

“A blessing we solitary ones perhaps appreciate 
more than you,” she added ; and then we fell into a 
discussion upon family ties, a propos of Scotch clannish- 
ness, and of Major Gordon, in whom it was very strong. 
I was sure he liked Charlie, not merely for himself, dear 
fellow ! good as he was, but because he belonged to 
“ the family.” 

“ And, as he once argued with me— we are very good 
friends now, you know — he cannot understand why you 
should like Charlie so much, seeing he does not belong 
to you — is not connected with you by any tie of blood. 
Nor am I, for that matter ; yet you like me a little, don’t 
you ? ” 

She pressed my hand tenderly, and then said : “Yes, 
you are right. The tie of blood — that is all Major 


MISS TOMMY. 


6 3 

Gordon cares for. Some have this feeling very strong 
— so strong that it blunts all sense of other ties. I have 
known parents, most devoted to their own children, who 
had no tenderness, no justice even, for other people’s 
children ; and brothers and sisters who thought what- 
ever they did was right, and what outsiders did infalli- 
bly wrong. But perhaps I judge harshly, Decie, my 
dear, and from my own point of view. What would be- 
come of me if I had no heart except for my own kith 
and kin, of whom I have none in the wide world ?” 

It was not often that she spoke thus ; seldom, indeed, 
of herself at all. She once said, laughing, “ that she did 
not find it an interesting subject.” But to-day, in the 
pleasure of having me with her, and on this visit — the 
last I should pay her before I was married— our hearts 
seemed to open out toward one another. 

We were sitting on the Castle Hill, near the top of the 
steps, and looking down on Dover town and bay, which 
lay so still and bright, with the autumn sunset reflected 
in it. Miss Trotter still came, every winter, to her little 
house at Dover. She liked it better, she owned, than 
her grand mansion in the country ; and so did I. We 
agreed that my farewell visit as Decie Murray should 
be to Dover. Accordingly, we fell into our old ways, 
and walks too. But I noticed she could not walk quite 
so far; she had often to stop and rest, as now. And 
when Charlie came down, she let us go off on our ram- 
bles by ourselves, and Major Gordon by himself. For 
he, too, appeared once or twice, and took up his quar- 
ters with his old landlady, who thought him “the nicest 
old gentleman that ever was.” 

Scarcely an “old ” gentleman, unless one saw his face. 
He was so thin — slim, one might say — and upright that 
walking behind him and Charlie, you could hardly say 


6 4 


MISS TOMMY. 


which was the uncle and which the nephew. How often 
we watched them both, Miss Tommy and I, standing by 
the window of her little drawing-room — watched them 
walk away together, like father and son, we looking 
after them — was it like mother and daughter ? or aunt 
and niece ? or simply friends — chosen friends ? 

People may talk as they will of the “ties of blood,” 
but the ties of friendship, of voluntary election, firm 
and well founded, are fully as close and as strong — com- 
parable to nothing, I think, except the tie of marriage ; 
that is, the real marriage of heart and soul, which I was 
now beginning to understand. 

“ I believe,” said I one day to Miss Tommy when I 
was standing by her side, watching those two, who had 
just left us, and were coming back to dinner — “ I believe, 
if anything happened that I did not marry Charlie, I 
should break my heart.” 

“No, you would not,” she answered gently, but with- 
out hesitation. “ Being a good woman, you would live 
and bear it. But whether he lived or died, if he did 
nothing to make him unworthy of love, you would feel 
like his wife to the end of your days.” 

I looked at her, just on the point of saying “that this 
was true; only, how could she possibly understand?” 
and then I changed my mind and said nothing. 

I cannot say I altogether liked Major Gordon’s set- 
tling himself at Dover, and so persistently coming here 
with his nephew, like the old song — 

“ You’ll in your girls again be courted, 

And I’ll go wooing with my boys,” 

which the boys might not wholly approve of. Charlie 
did not, but I calmed him down. And, for certain rea- 
sons of my own, I forgave the Major, and gave him no 


MISS TOMMY. 


65 


hint of being unwelcome. He really was not so very 
much in the way after all. Accustomed to long soli- 
tude, he needed very little to amuse him ; and if he had 
done so, Miss Trotter was fully equal to the occasion. 
Though not exactly clever, she had the quick sympathy 
which is almost better than cleverness. She was always 
inventing some little pleasure, outside, for him and for 
us ; and inside the house her constant cheerfulness, her 
unfailing sweet temper, and, above all, her bright sense 
of fun, made an atmosphere that would have sunned 
into pleasantness the grimmest old curmudgeon alive. 

But Uncle Gordon was no curmudgeon, nor grim, 
though I sometimes accused him of being so. By de- 
grees he seemed to become accustomed to our peaceful 
life, took an interest in all Miss Trotter’s work, and in 
our play, as he called our harmless love-making, which 
was so soon to merge in the busy duties of life ; he 
warned us once that we were “ like a couple of lambs 
sporting on the edge of a precipice.” However, his 
bitter sayings grew fewer and fewer : he seemed to ac- 
cept the fact that Charlie and I were happy, and to con- 
descend to be happy himself after his fashion. He 
owned that he “really enjoyed” our quiet evenings, all 
four together, to which I stoically submitted and com- 
pelled Charlie to submit ; not shutting ourselves up in 
a separate nook, as most lovers do. For, as I told the 
dear fellow, when he got impatient and cross, we should 
soon have our evenings all to ourselves, and have to sit 
“ four feet on a fender ” all our lives long. 

When I thought of this future — how sweet it was, how 
dear and familiar Charlie had grown to me, how impos- 
sible it would now be to carry on life without him — 
more and more it was borne in upon me what those 
suffer who have to live their whole life without the one 


5 


66 


MISS TOMMY. 


human being who is their other self, the entire satisfac- 
tion and completion of their existence. And I felt such 
pity — the deep pity that only happy folks can feel — for 
those who had been, for any cause, what is termed “ dis- 
appointed in love.” 

Major Gordon might never have been in love at all, 
by the little sympathy he showed for Charlie and me. 
Instead of going and talking with Miss Trotter, which 
he could so easily have done, he would persist in keep- 
ing up desultory general conversation, which sometimes 
drifted back into old times, familiar to our respected 
seniors, but a little dull for us. They belonged to the 
old world — we to the new ; and, fond as we were of 
them, there seemed a gulf between them and us. In 
spite of our heroic self-sacrifice, we found our evenings 
rather dreary, and were glad to propose a game at whist, 
or a book to read. Charlie read aloud remarkably well, 
and therefore was very good-natured in doing it. 

But it was difficult to find anything he considered 
worth reading in the rather limited library of Miss 
Trotter, who, I must confess, was not. a literary lady. 
Her books had chiefly belonged to her father. I dis- 
covered among them, to my surprise, some which Major 
Gordon must have given her when she was quite a girl. 
But neither he nor she was a book-lover now. His life 
had been too completely that of a wandering soldier, 
and hers was absorbed in the responsibilities of her large 
fortune and still larger heart. Still they both liked to 
hear “ a pretty story,” or a “ little bit of poetry ” — some- 
thing which belonged to their young days — something 
they could understand. And one evening, when we 
were at our wits’ end, Charlie and I, to find some- 
thing “ old-fashioned ” enough for our dear but rather 
difficult friends, we lighted upon an odd volume of 


MISS TOMMY. 


67 


Crabbe, which, no doubt, in the days of the departed 
Reverend John Trotter had been considered “ delight- 
ful ” poetry. 

Charlie opened it by merest chance at a poem called 
“Procrastination,” which probably this generation has 
never heard of, and yet it is very touching as well as 
clever in its way. It is the story of two lovers, affianced 
early in life. 

“The prudent Dinah was the maid beloved, 

And the kind Rupert was the' youth approved.” 

Fortune is against them, however, and Dinah’s “ pru- 
dence,” together with the advice of the wealthy aunt 
with whom she lives, causes the marriage to be put off 
and off. Rupert goes abroad to earn money ; the aunt 
dies and leaves Dinah her heiress, but Rupert, still poor, 
is not summoned back. The letters between them grow 
fewer and colder. Prosperity hardens the elderly 
maiden’s heart. She spends month after month 

“ In quiet comfort and in rich content. 

Miseries there were, and woes the world around, 

But these had not her pleasant dwelling found. 

She knew that mothers grieved and widows wept, 

And she was sorry— said her prayers — and — slept.” 

At last there appears before her 

“ A huge, tall sailor with his tawny cheek 
And pitted face.” 

It is Rupert, poor as ever, but loving and faithful — too 
faithful even to dread infidelity. The lady calls him, 
“ friend,” suggests that they are both frail and old, too 
old to think of love or marriage. With a mixture of 


68 * 


MISS TOMMY. 


religious sentiment and worldliness, she gives him what 
is elegantly termed “the sack.” 

“ She ceased. With steady glance, as if to see 
The very root of this hypocrisy, 

He her small fingers moulded in his hard 

And bronzed broad hand ; then told her his regard. 

His best respect, were, gone : but love had still 
Hold in his heart, and governed yet the will, 

Or he would curse her. Saying this, he threw 
The hand in scorn away, and bade adieu. 

Proud and indignant, suffering, sick and poor. 

He grieved unseen, and spoke of love no more.” 

Sinking lower in fortune, he “ shares a parish gift ” in 
this his native place. There sometimes 

“ At prayers he sees 

The pious Dinah dropped upon her knees ; 

Thence, as she walks the street with stately air, 

As chance directs, oft meet the parted pair. 

When he with thick-set coat of badge-man’s blue 
Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue — 

When his frank air and his unstudied pace 
Are seen with her soft manner, air, and grace, 

And his plain artless look with her sharp meaning face, 

It might some wonder in a stranger move 
How these together could have talked of love.” 

At this point of his reading Charlie paused ; he had 
read very well, growing interested in the story in spite 
of himself. So was I too. The “ pious Dinah,” how I 
hated her! We sat in a circle round the fire ; well I re- 
member the picture ! — Miss Trotter in her little chair, 
knitting — she said she was obliged to knit to keep her- 
self awake ; yet she did not seem asleep now, though 
the knitting had dropped. Her wide-open eyes were 
fixed with a sad, yearning, unspeakably tender gaze on 


M/SS TOMMY , ; 


69 


the arm-chair opposite, where, in comfortable shadow 
— she always arranged the light so that his eyes should 
not be troubled by it — sat Major Gordon. 

He w r as not sleeping either, but listening intently ; he 
always listened to a story with the earnest simplicity of 
a child. 

“ Shall I finish it, uncle, or are you tired ? ” 

“Not tired — no! But go on — go on,” he answered 
irritably. “ Let us see how it ends,” 

There was very little more. Only a picture — I won- 
der no artist has ever painted it — of one of those chance 
meetings, when Rupert, sitting on a roadside seat, 
watches “ the lady ” giving orders to a tradesman, and 
moralizes upon how he should have treated her had 
their positions been reversed — 

“Ah, yes ! I feel that I had faithful proved, 

And should have soothed and raised her, blessed and loved.” 

And then — 

“ Dinah moves on — she had observed before 
The pensive Rupert at a humble door ; 

Some thoughts of pity raised by his distress, 

Some feeling touch of ancient tenderness, 

Religion, duty, urged the maid to speak 
In terms of kindness to a man so weak. 

But pride forbade, and to return would prove 
She felt the shame of his neglected love — 

Nor wrapped in silence could she pass, afraid 
Each eye would see her and each heart upbraid. 

One way remained — the way the Levite took 
Who without mercy could on misery look 
(A way perceived by craft, approved by pride). 

She crossed, and passed him on the other side.” 

“ The ” — I am afraid it was really that strong exple- 
tive — “ the devil she did ! ” exclaimed Major Gordon, 


7 o 


MISS TOMMY. 


starting up in his chair, and then laughing at himself in 
a sort of shamefaced way at his great excitement over 
“ a mere bit of poetry.” 

“ Not poetry at all,” protested Charlie, with lofty dis- 
dain. “ A piece of common human nature, nothing 
more.” 

“ Yes, of course it is only human nature,” said his 
uncle, calming down. “ And it served the fellow right. 
He was a fool to trust a woman. And any man — any 
poor man — who marries a rich woman is worse than a 
fool, a knave.” 

To do Major Gordon justice, I believe that, in his 
simplicity of nature, his entire freedom from egotism or 
self-consciousness, he had no idea of the drift of what 
he was saying. I should have given him a gentle hint 
that his remark was, if not untrue, at least uncivil, but 
I caught sight of Miss Trotter’s face and held my 
tongue. 

What a sad, strange thing it is, the way the best of 
people often wound others quite unintentionally ! How 
often I have seen hands that would not willingly have 
hurt a fly, stab some tender heart to the very core, and 
pass on, never even noticing the blow, or guessing that 
they had wounded another, perhaps to death. 

Miss Trotter rose from her little chair. As she did 
so, her rustling gown — she always dressed richly and be- 
comingly — reminded me of the “ shaded silk of change- 
ful hue.” But there the parallel ended. 

“ Decie,” she said, leaning on me as she passed, for 
she moved feebly and unsteadily, “your Charlie reads 
well ; I like to hear him. He has been very kind. And 
now, if Major Gordon approves, we will go to our game 
at whist.” 

Her smile, as she turned toward him, was somewhat 


MISS TOMMY. 


7i 


fixed in its sweetness, and there was a metallic evenness 
in her tone not customary with her. Then, rearranging 
the light so as not to incommode Uncle Gordon, whose 
eyes always troubled him more or less, she took her 
place at the card-table and played for an hour. 

When our guests left she sat talking with me for a lit- 
tle while. I think it was about the color of my drawing- 
room furniture, and whether I should have chintz or 
damask. But as we parted on the top of the stairs, the 
cheek I kissed and the hands I held were as cold as 
stone. 

Lying awake that night I thought a good deal, and 
before morning I made up my mind, perhaps in griev- 
ous error — I was still a girl, with a full and happy heart, 
which saw only one perfect happiness — love — in exist- 
ence — but I meant well. I repeat — though I think of it 
now with an anguish of remorse, perhaps wholly un- 
needed — that I meant well. 

The next day was one of those lovely autumn morn- 
ings that we often have at Dover — bright, mild, and so 
clear that the windows in Calais town were plainly visi- 
ble, glittering in the sunshine across a placid sea. I 
had a curious fancy about Dover and Calais, places so 
like and so unlike, so near and yet so apart. They re- 
minded me of two people sitting looking at one another 
over an easily-crossed barrier — two who have been 
friends all their lives, and never anything more. “Friends 
— lovers that might have been.” 

I made the remark — perhaps a very stupid remark — 
this day, and at luncheon, that everybody might hear. 
But nobody did hear apparently, except Charlie, who 
laughed at me for quoting poetry, and declared that 
Dover and Calais were not friends, but bitter enemies, 
and then retold the old tale of Queen Philippa and the 


72 


MISS TOMMY. 


burghers coming with ropes round their necks, till, if 
he had not been such a dear innocent donkey, I could 
have boxed his ears. 

It was such a remarkably clear day that Miss Trotter 
proposed a walk to the Castle. Charlie had never seen 
the view from the top of the Keep, and Major Gordon 
was never w^eary of going round the fortifications, ex- 
plaining military tactics, and “fighting his battles o’er 
again,” as is so pleasant to old soldiers. Sometimes, in 
the midst of it, he would sigh and declare “ his day was 
done,” at which we only laughed at him, for, though so 
excessively thin, he was a hale man yet, and had grown 
much stronger since his return to England. But he was 
just at the time of life when many people, feeling the 
approach of old age, dread it and resist it, instead of 
accepting it with its good as well as its ill. He was 
continually trying to do too much, and then calling 
himself “ a broken-down man, fit for nothing in this 
world.” 

As he did this day, when, having already walked to 
St. Radegund’s and back, he persisted in climbing the 
Castle, and explaining to us' every inch of the forts and 
fortifications. At last, fairly tired out, he sat down on 
the turf behind the Roman Pharos, now an adjunct to 
the Castle church, and prepared for a quiet smoke, the 
one only luxury which he allowed himself. 

I can see him at this minute — his sallow, bearded face, 
his long, thin, brown hands ; he never wore gloves now, 
saying they were “ too expensive,” and, indeed, all his 
clothes were a little “ seedy ” in character. But his fig- 
ure was so upright, his carriage so graceful, that if he 
had been clothed in a sack Major Gordon would have 
looked like a gentleman. 

I sat down beside him, Owning I was tired, and send- 


MISS TOMMY. 


73 


in g Charlie off to the Keep in company with Miss Trot* 
ter, who volunteered to accompany him. 

“ How young and active she is still ! ” said the Major 
following them with his eyes. “ She walks as fast as 
Charlie himself.” 

“Yes ; she has spirit enough to do anything she has 
set her mind to do. She is a dear soul, and so sweet- 
looking still. I think I never saw such a pretty old 
lady.” 

“ Scarcely an old lady yet ; she must be ten or twelve 
years younger than I, and much younger in character 
and feelings. But she was always light-hearted.” 

“ Was she ? ” 

“And is so still. What a peaceful face it is ! What 
an even, happy life she must have had ! ” 

I said nothing. This chance turn which the conver- 
sation had taken was gradually bringing about — provi- 
dentially, was it ? — that to which I had made up my 
mind. 

“You women are incomprehensible creatures, Decie,” 
continued Major Gordon, with a long puff at his pipe, 
“ else I should have thought it a curious circumstance 
that Miss Trotter, with all her attractions, has remained 
unmarried.” 

I answered that I did not find it curious at all. Some 
of the very best and most charming women never did 
marry, not because nobody asked them, but because 
they were asked by nobody they cared to accept. For 
my part, I said, I would have been an old maid and 
gloried in it— but for Charlie ! 

Charlie’s uncle laughed heartily, regarding me with 
that amused paternal air which sometimes pleased, 
sometimes vexed me. Now, when I was so desperately 
in earnest, it altogether vexed me. 


74 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ You men are often as blind as bats,” I cried. “ My 
dear Miss Tommy is worth a hundred of you. Is it 
possible, Major Gordon, that it has never occurred to 
you why she never married ? ” 

“No.” And he turned upon me a countenance of 
most simple-minded astonishment — blank astonishment, 
nothing more. 

“And does it not occur to you now that the wisest 
and best thing you could do, for both your sakes, would 
be to — to make her Mrs. Gordon ?” 

For a minute he seemed perfectly paralyzed — but 
with surprise, mere surprise — then he seemed dimly to 
understand. His sallow face grew • scarlet ; it was 
strange to see an old man blush like a girl. He drew 
himself up with a haughty dignity that I had never seen 
before, even in him. 

“You are utterly and entirely mistaken. What you 
say is worse than a mistake — an insult to her and to 
me.” 

I was so confounded that I had not a word to sav. My 
only answer was a burst of tears, — futile childish tears. 

Major Gordon was one of those men who, in their 
worst anger, are mollified at once by seeing a woman 
weep. 

“ Don’t, my dear girl, pray don’t,” he muttered, hasti- 
ly ! “I forgive you. I know you meant no harm ; only 
you must never mention this — this folly, not even to 
Charlie. On no account whatever to Charlie,” added 
he, earnestly. “ It is a pure invention of your silly little 
brain, which must never be repeated to any human 
being.” 

He rose, letting his pipe drop as he did so ; it was 
broken to bits, and it was a very favorite pipe too ; but 
he never stopped to pick it up ; he just rose and walked 


MISS. TOMMY , ; 


75 


away. I saw him through my burning tears marching 
up and down, with his head bent and his hands clasped 
behind him, but he made no effort to come back to me 
again. 

Nor did I attempt to go to him. I could have bit my 
tongue off, knocked my head against the wall, in my 
anguish and vexation of spirit. And yet, as he truly 
said, I had meant no harm. I had only tried in my 
rash and silly way to play Providence — to put things 
right, which often go so cruelly wrong in this world — 
and I had failed. 

But perhaps I had been mistaken after all? In him 
I certainly had. There was evidently not an atom of 
tenderness or emotion in him. To see him walking to 
and fro there, as stiff as a bronze statue, and then go 
forward to meet Charlie and Miss Trotter as if nothing 
had happened ; oh ! it was aggravating beyond all 
words ! 

Maybe it was to punish me, I thought, or to prevent 
my betraying anything to Charlie, that he put his arm 
through his nephew’s and they walked ahead together 
to East Cliff ; much to the annoyance of my poor boy, 
who naturally wanted to walk with me. For Miss Trot- 
ter — my dear Miss Tommy ! — she accepted the arrange- 
ment, as she usually did any fancy of Major Gordon’s, 
and followed with me, talking in her usual sweet way — 
contented always in others’ contentment. For me there 
was nothing left but to practise the self-control which 
she had taught me ; I kept my misery to jnyself, and, 
either from pride or pain, I think I was more than usu- 
ally cheerful all that day. 

It had struck me as not impossible that Major Gordon 
might not appear in the evening as usual ; indeed, I 
should have thought better of him had he stopped away. 


76 


MISS TOMMY. 


But he did not. He came in rather late, and when 
Charlie — whose quarters were at the Lord Warden — 
was just beginning to wonder what had become of his 
uncle ; but he did come, and sat in his arm-chair, and 
played his game at whist in the old way. If once or 
twice he seemed absent or even a little sad, this was so 
much his habit that we none of us noticed it — at least, 
we never said we did ; but he said “ Good-night ” to us 
with his usual gentle courtesy — not a word more than 
“ Good-night.” 

Next morning, when we were sitting at breakfast, 
there came a note to Miss Trotter. She read it, then 
walked to the window and read it again. Lastly, she 
gave it to me to read — 

“ My dear Miss Trotter, — Will you say to my nephew 
that unexpected business demands my presence in Lon- 
don to-day for some time ? I have accordingly given up 
my rooms — offering good Mrs. Wilson a week’s rent in- 
stead of the proper notice. She has refused it. There- 
fore I am obliged to trouble you with the sum enclosed, 
begging you to make it useful to her in some way. 

“ To yourself I can only offer my excuses for not mak- 
ing any formal adieu, and thank you from my heart for 
your many kindnesses. 

“Yours sincerely, 

“ Charles Everett Gordon.” 


I returned the letter in silence, and without looking 
at her. For myself, I could have burst out sobbing, or 
torn my hair in despair, had not such proceedings been 
utterly ridiculous as the result of a formal note of fare- 
well from Charlie’s uncle. At which, moreover, Charlie 


MISS TOMMY. 


77 


himself, who came in shortly afterward, did not seem in 
the least surprised. 

“ Poor old fellow ! he is so restless, he never settles 
anywhere. My only wonder was that he stayed here so 
long.” 

And so the matter was put aside. Wedound on inquiry 
that Major Gordon had packed up his portmanteau at 
night — it really seemed a part of himself, that old port- 
manteau !— and started at eight the next morning, leav- 
ing no address. 

And so the wave of life closed over him, and more 
than him. Even Charlie and I soon forgot him, for we 
were young and happy, and had a great deal to talk 
about and arrange. Miss Trotter too was busy, as she 
always was ; and I saw little of her all day long. But 
at night, when Charlie and I crept into a corner to carry 
on our harmless love-making, I caught sight of her, sit- 
ting opposite the empty chair, doing nothing, her hands 
folded on her lap, in an attitude — was it of peace, of 
patience, or only resignation ? 

After that, during the few days I stayed, we mentioned 
Major Gordon very seldom, and then only in the most 
cursory and superficial way. Once, when, as no second 
letter came, I carelessly accused him of “ forgetting ” us, 
she answered with grave reproof : 

“No, that is not likely. He is one of the few who 
never forget. Perhaps, as Charlie suggested, he found 
Dover — and us — a little dull, and was glad to get away. 
But,” with a quiver of the lip, “ he need not have spoken 
of my ‘ kindness.’ ” 


PART III. 


I had been married over two years. If I did not ab- 
solutely adore my Charlie, nor he me, as in our silly 
sweet courtship days, we loved one another in a sensible, 
rational way, which was far better. We had found out 
all each other’s faults, crotchets, and foibles — quar- 
relled, and got over it. To suppose that married people 
never quarrel is simple nonsense, but then, if they have 
any common-sense and right feeling, they will soon get 
over it — all the more perhaps from the feeling that they 
must get over it. 

It may be a commonplace and unsentimental view of 
things, but, as I often tell Charlie, I believe that once or 
twice during our first year of married life, if he could 
have got rid of me, he would have done it. And I — 
well, I won’t say. But as we could not get rid of one 
another, but were obliged to run quietly together, like 
two hounds in a leash — why, we did it, and so learned 
to make the best of one another, as I trust we ^hall al- 
ways continue to do. 

And we made more than the best, if possible, of our 
little son when he came — our “son and heir,” though 
we had not much for him to be heir to ! We resolved 
that he should be Charles Everett Gordon, the third of 
the name now extant ; which reminded us that we ought 
to give him for godfather his great-uncle, Major Gor- 


M/SS TOMMY. 


79 


don. And as, being a boy, he only required one god- 
mother, it was a difficult and delicate question as to 
who that important personage should be. My mother 
said she was too old, and besides she had about seven- 
teen other godchildren. We were in considerable per- 
plexity, when Charlie suddenly suggested Miss Trotter. 

I hesitated, which made him very angry. (N.B. If 
my husband has a fault, it is that he always likes every- 
body to agree with him in everything, especially his 
wife.) 

“ Why hot, Decie ? What extraordinary notion have 
you got into your head ? Why not, I ask ? Because 
you think she’ll think that you think she ought to pro- 
vide for him, or at least to educate him ? which she 
might easily do, rich woman as she is, with not a rela- 
tive in the world.” 

I protested, with entire sincerity, that no such idea 
had ever entered my mind. In truth, her riches were the 
last thing one thought of in relation to Miss Tommy. 
My reasons had been altogether different. But I did 
not give them. I never could see that even the most 
loving wife has a right to tell her husband other people’s 
secrets. Also, as I once heard Miss Trotter say, a secret 
discovered by chance should be kept as sacredly as if 
it had been specially confided. 

So I let Charlie say his say— dear hot-tempered young 
villain as he is ! — and then mildly suggested that the 
plain truth was our best course — it often is. Why not 
write to Miss Trotter, saying that we asked her for pure 
love, that we did not want her to do anything for our 
boy, not even to give him a christening fork and spoon ? 

“ That silver spoon which was not in his mouth when 
he was born, I fear ! ” laughed Charlie. “ And we will 
say the same thing to Uncle Gordon, and tell her what 


8o 


MISS TOMMY , ; 


we have said. She can’t suppose we want to get any- 
thing out of him. She knows — for I told her myself — 
that he is as poor as a church mouse.” 

The letters were written, and an answer in the affir- 
mative came to both, amusing Charlie extremely. 

“ Such formal, old-fashioned epistles. They may 
well come from an old maid, and an old — well, Uncle 
Gordon is as good as a bachelor. But I dare say both 
will feel kindly enough to the little fellow. And at any 
rate we have paid them the compliment.” 

Which, in the pride of our youthful parenthood, we 
considered a very great compliment indeed. We were 
glad to pay it, having seen but little of either Miss Trot- 
ter or Major Gordon since our marriage, at which they 
were both present. Directly afterward Miss Trotter 
had gone to Sycamore Hall, her country place, which 
she did not much care for. It was of the genteel villa 
order, only a dozen miles from London by rail. But 
she stayed there longer than usual, having lent her Do- 
ver house to some invalid friends, of whom she always 
had a large stock on hand. The poor, the helpless, the 
sick, the sorrowful, always gravitated toward her as by 
a natural impulse. She said it was one of the compensa- 
ting laws of 'Providence, to give her that great strong- 
hold of solitary lives — something to do. 

For Uncle Gordon, whether he did anything or noth- 
ing, we could not find out. I fear, alas ! that in our 
young happiness we did not trouble ourselves overmuch 
to find out. We resided in barracks at Chichester, he 
in London. He had enough to live upon — we knew 
that —at least enough for a man of his simple and almost 
ascetic habits. And he was “eccentric,” Charlie said. 
He did not like to be interfered with ; so when, instead 
of giving us his address at the lodgings which we sup- 


MISS TOMMY. 


8 1 


posed he had, he only gave it at his club, we accepted 
the fact, and thought no more about it or him. 

“ Evil is wrought by want of thought, 

As much as want of heart.” 

And so it befell that, without intending it, we had actu- 
ally never seen these two dear old friends, nor, I believe, 
had they seen each other, since my marriage-day, until 
we all met at the church on the day of my boy’s chris- 
tening. 

It was a London Church, for my mother had insisted 
on having me with her when baby was born, and it was 
dull and gloomy as London churches often are. But 
there seemed to come sunshine into it with the arrival 
of baby’s godmother. 

Miss Trotter had driven up from Sycamore Hall. 
When she entered, in her soft gray dress, her white bon- 
net and shawl, I thought she looked as pretty as ever ; 
and when she took baby in her arms, admired and kissed 
him, her smile was as bright and innocent as his own 
(dear lamb that he was ! and of course the finest baby 
that ever was seen) ; but afterward it seemed to me she 
was both paler and thinner, and a good deal aged, since 
those happy days at Dover. 

However, I alone noticed this. Charlie approved of 
her very much, and whispered that she looked “ a regular 
fairy godmother.” But at this moment there marched 
up the aisle, a little late and hurried, though upright and 
military-looking as ever, Major Gordon. 

He seemed confused among us all ; shook hands with 
me as if he scarcely knew me, and bowed to Miss Trot- 
ter and my mother as if uncertain who they were, until 
I explained, saying that the former was to be godmother. 
Then he shook hands with her warmly. 

6 


82 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ I beg your pardon ; I really did not know you, I am 
growing so blind.” 

She looked up at him with a sudden, startled air. I 
too recalled with almost a “ stound ” of pain how Char- 
lie and I had laughed over his bad, irregular writing ; 
and how I had quite forgotten what he once told me, 
and which I had smiled over as a morbid fancy, that in 
course of years he would infallibly pay the penalty of 
his Egyptian experience, and perhaps lose his sight en- 
tirely. 

Was it that — was it because he could not see how 
shabby his clothes were, that he looked so untidy, so un- 
like himself ? And did anybody notice this ? 

But I had no time for speculation or for contrition. 
The ceremony began. The sponsors — my young brother 
was the third — took their places round the font ; and 
Uncle Gordon, standing by Miss Trotter’s side, repeated 
after her, with great unction and earnestness, his part in 
the service. When it was ended, he even condescended, 
guided by her, to kiss the little morsel of humanity for 
whom he had made these vows. 

“And I mean to keep them,” said he, in his direct and 
simple way ; “ or if I fail, she will. The third Charles 
Everett Gordon shall turn out better than both the two 
former — eh, Charlie ? ” 

He was very cheerful, and seemed glad to come among 
us again, and proud to be a great-uncle and godfather. 
When we returned to my mother’s we had a most merry 
christening breakfast — “almost like a wedding break- 
fast,” Charlie declared, if there had been a bride for the 
infant bridegroom. So after the health of the hero of the 
feast had been given, he gave that of the godmother ; 
whereupon Major Gordon rose, with great dignity and 
grace, and returned thanks for Miss Trotter, referring to 


MISS TOMMY. 


83 


the many years he had known her, his exceeding respect 
for her, etc., etc. — a series of the usual kindly common- 
places, but said with an earnestness very pleasant to see. 

She listened, much as people do listen under such cir- 
cumstances, with her eyes fixed on the table-cloth ; but 
her hand, when I took it, clutched mine with a nervous 
grasp as if I were something to hold by, while every- 
body and everything went drifting away. 

She had obeyed our request literally, and brought 
baby nothing but her blessing. Uncle Gordon, how- 
ever, touched me exceedingly by giving me, just before 
he left, a silver coral and bells. 

“ Take it — it belonged to my little girl that died,” was 
all he said, and went away. 

To think that after all these years — thirty at the least 
— he should have kept something of his dead child’s, 
whom everybody else had long forgotten ! But, as Miss 
Trotter once said of him, he “never forgot.” And I 
vowed to myself that I too would never forget, but in 
years to come would try to do all I could for Uncle Gor- 
don. 

Alas ! resolutions melt away, especially when one is 
not strong and has a good many cares. My baby fell ill, 
and during the days and weeks of suspense that I hung 
over his little cradle, feeling that the spark of flickering 
life, which was nothing to the outside world, was every- 
thing to me, I never thought of other lives. His god- 
father quite passed from my rem^nbrance, and his god- 
mother too, until one day, when he had fairly turned the 
corner, and began to get well, I was told that Miss Trot- 
ter was below waiting to see me. 

How I rushed into her arms ! What torrents of thank- 
ful tears I wept upon her shoulder ! How much I had 
to tell her — of baby’s danger, his beauty, his sweetness 


8 4 


MISS TOMMY. 


—the heartbreak it would have been to lose him — all 
my griefs, my hopes, my joys — as I had always been ac- 
customed to talk about to her. But so did everybody. 

She listened, as she always listened to everybody, 
with that keen quick sympathy of hers, entering into 
everything as if there were, for the time being, 1 no other 
interest in the wide world. My mother had been very 
kind — we were in her house all this time — but then she 
was a busy mother of a family, and a fashionable lady 
besides. Now, Miss Tommy was a woman, which not 
all are who call themselves so ; and not every real 
mother has so much of the motherly heart as she. 

I said so to her, thanking her for having come all the 
way to London to see me, such a deal of trouble for an 
old lady to take. 

“Yes. I am an old lady now — I can do as I like,” 
she answered, smiling. “ But I did not come up from 
Dover, I am at Sycamore Hall still. I had — business.” 

“Other folks’ business of course ! You may not al- 
ways ‘ love your neighbor as yourself,’ but you wear out 
your life for him all the same. Uncle Gordon always 
used to say so.” 

“ It was about your Uncle Gordon I wanted to speak 
to you, Decie, if you can spare me ten minutes.” 

Saying this, she looked so sad, so grave, that suddenly 
I remembered, with a pang of contrition, my good reso- 
lutions on the christening day, entirely forgotten since. 

“Is anything amiss with Uncle Gordon? Surely 
nothing has happened ? ” 

“ No, my dear, nothing serious ; but I am afraid there 
is a good deal amiss with him, and I waited to consult 
you about it, as soon as your own trouble was over.” 

And then she told me — w-hat I ought to have known 
already — what Charlie and I ought to have had the 


MISS TOMMY. 


35 


sense to find out, how she found it out, Heaven only 
knows ! that Uncle Gordon had been far from well 
of late ; that he was living in shabby London lodg- 
ings, alone, uncared for, in much discomfort, if not in 
actual poverty. No wonder! We all knew his income 
was small, requiring the utmost management to make 
it do at all, and how could he manage with his failing 
sight and advancing years ? how could he save himself 
from falling a prey to dishonest servants and unscrup- 
ulous landladies ? 

“ He cannot take care of himself, and there is nobody 
to take care of him. What can be done, Decie ?” 

“ I will go and see him.” And I started up in remorse. 
“Poor Uncle Gordon! To think that we, his own 
people, have forsaken him, while you — but I must go 
to him at once.” 

“ Will you take me with you ?” she said it almost as 
if asking a favor. “ I have the address, somewhere in 
St. Pancras — and — there is a cab waiting outside. Shall 
we go ? ” 

“ Ah ! that is so like you. When you want to do a 
good deed, you do it at once.” 

“ My dear,” she answered, with a faint smile, “ the 
young may wait — the old cannot.” 

So, ashamed of my hesitation, I ran up-stairs, to find 
my baby sleeping the peaceful sleep of convalen- 
cence. There was no reason why I should not go, so I 
went. 

She had waiting only a common cab ; her own com- 
fortable carriage and sleek horses would have indeed 
startled the natives of that narrow street — one of the 
many semi-genteel streets which lie between Russell 
Square and King’s Cross, free from shops and chiefly 
let as lodgings ; perfectly respectable, but 0I1 ! how un- 


86 


MISS TOMMY. 


utterably dreary ! Especially on the shady side, where 
we found the number we were in search of ; aided by a 
woman who went crying, “Strawberries ! strawberries ! ” 
down the long, hot pavement, the only indication that 
summer was at hand. 

But no spring or summer, no sunshine or fresh, sweet 
air, ever came into those dark, dirty rooms, which were 
all Major Gordon had of “ home.” 

Miss Trotter looked up at the gloomy windows with a 
sigh. “ After all his happy youth, all his long wander- 
ings, this ! ” I heard her say, as if more to herself than 
me ; and then we entered. 

“ Two ladies a-wanting to see old gen’leman in parlor,” 
screamed the little lodging-house servant, as if with in- 
tense astonishment at such a visit. 

He needed to be a “gentleman ” to face it. Rousing 
himself, half asleep, from an old leather arm-chair, 
wrapped in a once gay but now most shabby Indian 
dressing-gown, his hair unkempt, his beard neglected — 
dull, untidy-looking — everything, in short, but dirty, 
which would have been impossible to the dainty habits 
of the dear old man. He rose up — tall, gaunt, more like 
Don Quixote than ever, none the less so from his never- 
forgotten knightly courtesy. 

“To what am I indebted — I mean, who is doing me 
this honor ? ” 

“Oh, Uncle Gordon, it’s only me — Decie — and — and 
Miss Trotter.” 

“ Miss Trotter! ” I could see him start. “ It is very 
kind of Miss Trotter to come and see me here.” 

They shook hands ; and I think neither he nor she 
noticed my bad grammar — nor indeed anything about 
me at all — for the moment. 

He was evidently very glad to see us — her especially. 


M/SS TOMMY. 87 

Looking round the room for a chair and finding none, 
he pushed forward the arm-chair. 

“ It is not so very uncomfortable, especially when one 
is asleep, as I fear I was when you entered. These long 
afternoons one gets tired, I find. Allow me.” 

With the air of a Bayard he placed her in the chair, 
felt for a footstool, and put it under her feet, then turned 
to me and thanked me warmly for coming to see him. 

“ But how did you find me out ? I never gave any 
address. I thought the club was sufficient,” added he, 
returning to his hard, dry, dignified manner. “This is 
not exactly a — a palace in which to receive ladies.” 

I made some excuse about Miss Trotter’s having 
heard where he lived, and that he had not been well, so 
we were anxious. Then I darted at once into my own 
affairs, and how ill his godson had been, occupying his 
attention entirely for two or three minutes. Meanwhile 
Miss Trotter sat in the arm-chair with her veil down. 

I could have cried almost when I looked at Uncle 
Gordon, and then at the wretched lodging-house parlor, 
grimy and gloomy, with just the ordinary shabby 
lodging-house furniture — a table, six chairs, and a horse- 
hair sofa. No pictures, no books, no adornments of any 
kind. Such an air of dreary neglect about everything ; 
even the half-eaten mid-day dinner being left on the 
table where it was laid, as if nobody could take the 
trouble to fetch it away. Yes, I — even I — could have 
wept ; what must it have been with others? — those who 
knew him when he was young, like my Charlie. Would 
Charlie — would myTittle Carl ever come to this ? 

And yet, wreck as we found him, sitting — as he half 
comically, half bitterly said, pointing to the debris of 
dinner — “like Marius among the ruins of Carthage,” 
there was a dignity, a patience, even a sweetness in his 


88 


MISS TOMMY. 


look that made it impossible to pity him. The feeling 
concerning him was something quite different — some- 
thing that dried the tears in one’s eyes, and made one 
involuntarily use a softer tone in speaking, and be more 
punctilious than ever in what one said to him, as if he 
had been a duke or a prince instead of a poor, broken- 
down, half-pay officer. 

He gave us tea — the nastiest tea and the saltest butter 
I ever tasted. What would Charlie have said to them ? 
But they might have been nectar and ambrosia, by the 
way he offered, and Miss Trotter officiated at, that mis- 
erable meal. He had asked her to do so, and when she 
took off her veil and gloves and sat down to that femi- 
nine duty, she seemed to make a “ sunshine in a shady 
place.” 

It was a very shady place indeed. “This room has a 
north aspect, the sun never enters it,” said Major Gor- 
don. “ The other side of the street is brighter, but then 
lodgings are much dearer, and, besides, it is very little 
matter to me ; I am quite content here.” 

“ Sweet are the uses of adversity.” In all that visit I 
never heard him say one of the bitter things of which he 
used to say so many at Dover. But now something 
seemed to have softened him, and made him less restless 
and irritable. Was it the long solitude, or the shadow 
of coming blindness, of which he spoke with such com- 
posure that I was amazed ? 

“ I try my best, Decie, but I fear I am growing more 
helpless every day. I doubt if I shall be competent to 
pass an opinion upon my godson’s beauty if I do not 
come to see him very soon.” 

“You must come,” I eagerly urged. “Why not? 
You can have almost nothing to do.” 

“ Nothing that I can do — reading and writing are be- 


MISS TOMMY. 89 

cbming impossible. Yes, the days are rather long ; that 
is why you found me asleep, I suppose.” 

“ Do you never go out ? ” asked Miss Trotter, gently. 

“ Oh, yes ; regularly every day. I do not want to get 
ill and fall a burden upon other folk before my time. 
And my doctor in India told me I should always be 
able to see light, as oculists call it, so as to find my 
way about, which is a great comfort. For the rest, 
when one knows the worst, one can always face it, at 
least, when one is old and has not much to lose. It is 
the young who are frightened, is it not, Miss Trotter? ” 
added he, turning to her with a smile, and repeating his 
thanks. “ It was so kind of you to take all this trouble, 
when, I fear, I have neglected common politeness.” 

“ But not kindness,” she answered. “ Your old land- 
lady, Mrs. Wilson, can never be grateful enough to you 
for getting her son that situation in London. She will 
bless you, she says, to her dying day.” 

“Then I am sure I hope I shall be blessed for a long 
time. Will you tell her so when you go back to 
Dover ? ” 

“ Suppose,” said Miss Trotter, after a moment’s hesi- 
tation, “ you were to tell her yourself ? ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“Her lodgings have stood empty a long time. It 
would be a great advantage to her if some one who 
gave little trouble, like yourself, some one she could 
rely on — poor widow woman as she is — would take her 
two rooms. Dover may be dull — I dare say you found 
it so — but it is pleasanter than London in hot weather ; 
and Mrs. Wilson’s rooms are very comfortable.” 

“Yes; and I liked the green bank in front and the 
green churchyard — my quiet neighbors I called them — 
behind. Yes — but — No!” 


9 o 


MISS TOMMY. 


“ By and by I hope to have Decie with me ; also yo\ir 
godson. Isn’t it your duty to come and see that the 
boy is brought up in the way he should go ? ” 

“ He cannot fail to be, with such a mother — and such 
a godmother,” said Major Gordon, bowing to each of 
us in his old formal way. But he said no more about 
Dover and Mrs. Wilson, nor did Miss Trotter. The 
pained look on her face, which he could not see, and 
her silence, which he did not seem to notice — I under- 
stood both, and wondered, angrily, Is there a man in the 
world who is worth a woman's devotion ? 

Major Gordon talked a good deal more, asking numer- 
ous questions about Charlie and the boy, and scarcely 
speaking of himself at all. He seemed very quiet, very 
patient, but as if he had lost all interest in life, and was 
just drifting on from day to day, without troubling him- 
self much about anything. 

We rose at last. 

“ Pardon ! but I must go with you till you find a cab. 
I will not detain you a minute.” 

He did, though — a good many minutes, poor fellow ! 
till he emerged from the next room spruced up — his old 
self in some degree — as thin and upright and military- 
looking as ever, and showed us out with great state, ex- 
plaining, in answer to some remonstrances, that we 
need not be in the least uneasy about him — with the 
help of his stout stick he could pilot himself any- 
where. 

“ I have not sunk to a dog and a string yet, you see, 
though it may come to that — who knows ? And I am 
very careful of stumbling. I have stumbled a good 
deal in my lifetime, but I keep a firm footing now. I 
mean to be independent as long as ever I can.” 

And then with exceeding earnestness I urged him to 


MISS TOM MK 


9i 


come and stay a little — a good while — all summer — with 
Charlie and me, his own flesh and blood. 

“ Do you really mean it ? ” said he, in a touched voice. 
“Would not you young people weary of me ? But yet, 
as you say, I am your own flesh and blood.” 

“ And you will come ? ” 

“Perhaps.” And then, with a hearty “Good-by, 
and thank you,” he parted from us. We passed him as 
we drove, feeling his way carefully with his stick. Hear- 
ing the wheels, he paused a moment and took off his 
hat with his old stately air. 

“ Poor Uncle Gordon ! I do hope he will come.” 

“ Yes, to Chichester — not. Dover. He cares only for 
his own flesh and blood. Many people are like that,” 
Miss Trotter added, hastily. “ It is — a fine quality to 
have.” 

“ Uncle Gordon has innumerable fine qualities,” I 
said. “ But ” — I couldn’t help adding — “ if I had had 
the making of him, I think I would have made him — a 
little different.” 

Miss Trotter said she was going straight home. What 
a contrast that luxurious, empty Sycamore Hall must 
be to the “home” we had just quitted! So I left her 
at Victoria Station, sole occupant of a comfortable, first- 
class carriage, looking so sweet in her rich black silks, 
her soft whites and grays — just the dress for an elderly 
lady who wishes — and rightly wishes — to look “ lovely ” 
to the end. Outwardly she was the picture of peace 
and prosperity ; but after she had bade me a smiling 
good-by, I saw — what she did not mean me to see — 
the weary face, the clutch of the clasped hands pressed 
tightly together, as when we nerve ourselves to bear an 
almost unbearable pain. 

Yet there was nothing to do, nothing to say. It was 


92 


MISS TOMMY. 


one of those “ mysterious dispensations of Providence,” 
as people call them, in which no one can interfere ex- 
cept Providence ; and the only safe plan is to sit still 
and hold one’s tongue. 

I carried my son home in triumph to Chichester, and 
all the ladies of the regiment declared that there never 
was such a baby ! At least, they told me so — in which 
opinion I agreed. And even now, in spite of the six 
which came- after, I hold the flower of my flock to be 
Charles Everett Gordon the third. 

That his godfather and namesake did not come and 
see him was a great blow to my maternal pride. I wrote 
several touching letters, setting forth the perfections of 
the young gentleman, and asking no answer except the 
welcome sight of our dear old uncle ; but neither that 
nor any other reply came. Then Charlie, happening to 
be a day in London, called, missed him, and came back 
indignant at the folly of any man’s burying himself in 
such a “ horrid hole.” 

“But then Uncle Gordon was always eccentric, and 
did not care a pin for outside things ” — which was a 
great eccentricity to my dear, matter-of-fact Charlie. 
“ He cannot be ill, for he was out walking. I left my 
card, wflth a message that we hoped to see him at Chi- 
chester immediately. If he does not come, it must be 
because he does not care to come, and we must just 
leave him alone. It is the only way.” 

I was not so sure of that, and I did not leave him 
alone, but wrote again and again ; in vain. After that, 
feeling that there was no more to be done, unwillingly 
I sank into silence. 

The hot summer days came and went. In August 
my boy began to flag a little, and by September I was 
sure he needed sea air. So, after thinking oi the mat- 


MISS TOMMY. 


93 


ter on all sides — not wholly on my own side, for my 
baby, instead of making me more selfish, seemed to have 
knocked the selfishness out of my heart, and opened it 
to other people’s sorrows and cares — I wrote to my dear 
Miss Tommy, and proposed that we should come to 
Dover, to Mrs. Wilson’s lodgings, which were good 
enough for us, as they had once been for Major Gordon. 

“And then we should be no trouble to you,” I added, 
“ for you might not like a baby in the house.” 

Which was a great piece of hypocrisy on my part, for 
who on earth could object to such a domestic sunbeam 
as my little Carl ? Though he was not quite as silent 
as sunbeams — he shouted, cooed, laughed, and, very oc- 
casionally, cried. Still, though politeness made me dis- 
guise my opinion, I felt he would be a great attraction 
in any old maid’s house, and was neither surprised nor 
sorry when Miss Trotter wrote that we must come to 
East Cliff and nowhere else. So we came. 

There was no change in the place or the house, except 
that by some miraculous agency my former bedroom 
had been turned into a nursery ! But there was a great 
change in me — from the idle, sentimental, love-sick girl 
to the busy wife and mother, who had won from Fate all 
she craved. Was it worth the winning ? Do we ever 
find a fulfilled desire as perfect as we thought it ? 

But let me not lightly condemn either myself or my 
Charlie. If in some things I had not gained exactly 
what I expected, I had gained much that I did not ex- 
pect — experience, which is a possession in itself ; a full, 
busy, active life, in which one has hardly time to con- 
sider whether it is a perfectly happy life or not. Also, 
I had gained, in a sense, myself ; had learned to guide 
and control myself, which is the great secret of guiding 
and governing others. In so doing I had also learned 


94 


MISS TOMMY. 


to live out of myself, and in and for others — the real mys- 
tery and best blessing of marriage. 

“No ; don’t imagine I ever wish I had not been mar- 
ried,” said I one day to Miss Tommy, when I had been 
opening up to her a fardel of cares domestic, small in 
themselves, but amounting oftentimes to a heavy bur- 
den, such as unmarried girls — free, careless creatures ! 
— can hardly understand. “ How people can ever go 
on making novels and plays end with marriage, and dis- 
miss their characters to live happy ever after, passes my 
comprehension ! But for all that — for all that ” 

I looked at my sweet Carl, asleep on his rug on the 
shingle, with an umbrella over him, and thought of his 
kind young father, who was so proud of him and so 
fond of him, in an ignorant, masculine way. And I felt 
that, spite of all cares, mine was the true life, the natu- 
ral life ; that I had need to rejoice in it, and to thank 
God for it, as I hope I did. 

We were sitting on the shore just in front of Miss 
Trotter’s house — our usual morning encampment — with 
books and work, though, I fear, we did little at either* 
but sat watching the waves, in sleepy peace, migrating 
backward from time to time — not being of the courtiers 
of Canute tribe, to make believe that our individual 
wills could control the routine of the universe. How 
little can any one life fashion its destiny ! except so far 
as it takes i^s lot into its own hands, accepts it, and 
makes the best of it. 

I had not to look far for an example of this. Coming 
back with clearer eyes to my old haunts, I admired more 
than ever my dear Miss Tommy. I enjoyed, too, hav- 
ing her all to myself, at least, so far as was possible in 
her busy life. It seemed, however, a little less busy 
than it used to be, and she herself less' active and ener- 


MISS TOMMY. 


95 


getic. More than once she owned to being “tired.” 
And when I suggested that she had come to the time of 
rest, and ought to rest, she did not deny it, unless by a 
faint smile, and a whisper of “ Not yet ; not just yet, my 
dear.” And as she sat beside me on the shingle, osten- 
sibly keeping guard over Carl’s slumbers, and knitting 
the while, I noticed that her eyes were often neither on 
the child nor her work, but fixed with a quiet sadness 
on the shining water — the “ illimitable sea without a 
bound ” — which, I think, wh£n people come to the verge 
of this our little life they seem to yearn to, as if it re- 
minded them of that eternity which, we pray, may satisfy 
all that was incomplete in time, and, in some way or 
other, round our poor, petty existence as the ocean 
rounds the world. 

Though I had been at Dover some days, and we had 
had a great deal of talk, we had never once spoken of 
Uncle Gordon till this morning, when, missing my daily 
letter from my husband, and knowing he was to go up 
to London on the Saturday, I wondered whether any- 
thing had gone wrong, and communicated my doubts 
to my companion. 

Miss Trotter looked up. “The Monday letters come 
in late from London.” She took out her watch. “They 
will arrive in five minutes. Stay here, Decie, while I go 
and fetch them.” 

And she watched me while I tore open Charlie’s ; 
feeling glad to see his dear, old, ugly scrawl again, more 
illegible than ever, as if he had written in great haste. 
(He must have done so, for he never mentioned Carl.) 

“ ‘ I want you to come up to London and see Uncle 
Gordon. He has fallen into the hands of a confounded 
quack, who promises to cure his weak sight, but it seems 
more a case of kill than cure. He won’t listen to me ; 


9 6 


MISS TOMMY. 


he may to you, or perhaps to Miss Trotter, if you could 
get her to come. He has evidently a great respect for 
her judgment. Bring her, and come at once.’ 

“ It is impossible ! ” I cried. “ Leave my Carl for 
two days ! what is Charlie thinking of ? How stupid 
men are, even when husbands and fathers ! Impossible ! ” 

Miss Trotter, who had sat down on the shingle, rose 
up. There was a new energy in her movements, a new 
brightness in her eyes. 

“My dear, let us try if we cannot make it possible. 
I will go with you, and Carl too ; the journey will not 
harm him, and he can stay with a friend of mine in 
London ” — my mother was abroad. “ Let me see. The 
next train starts in two hours. Could you be ready ?” 

There was no resisting her quiet resolution. “ We’ll 
try,” I said, and rose. 

“You will never regret it. Look here ” — she pointed 
out a postscript which I had not noticed in Charlie’s 
letter. “ ‘ Unless you come at once it may be too late. 
The operation is fixed for Tuesday.’ ” 

“ And this is Monday. Poor Uncle Gordon ! ” 

“It must not be too late,” Miss Trotter said. “We 
will go to him to-night, and get him to come right away 
from London— here, perhaps. You must persuade him, 
Decie.” 

“ You must,” Charlie said. 

“ Oh, no ; he only cares for his own people,” was the 
answer, with a sad kind of smile. 

How we managed it I hardly knew, but we did man- 
age it : we caught our train, and arrived safely in Lon- 
don. She took me to her “friend,” an old servant, who 
had married from her house, and who now let most com- 
fortable lodgings. There we established Carl and his 
nurse, Miss Trotter waiting patiently beside me till my 


MISS TOMMY. 


97 


screaming little angel was put to bed and asleep, and 
myself fed, rested, and refreshed — how she thought of 
me in all those little things ! Then she said, “ Shall we 
go ?” and we went. 

It was an August evening — sunless, airless — all the 
more dreary because one knew that the sun was setting 
and the breezes blowing somewhere in the world ; some- 
where that one might get to, and yet could not. I often 
think the saddest of all wants or losses is a loss that one 
feels to be needless. 

“ Why will he shut himself up in this miserable dull 
street,” I cried, as we entered it, “when he might make 
himself so happy among us ? His life is not near done 
yet.” 

“No ; look ! ’’—she grasped my hand. “Is not that 
he at the door ? ” 

It was, indeed, poor Uncle Gordon — taller, thinner, 
shabbier than ever, I thought — standing on his door- 
step, with his head raised, staring up at a bright glim- 
mer of light, the last ray of sunset caught by the attic 
windows opposite. He watched it till it vanished, and 
then, feeling his way with his stick, walked slowly down 
the street. But he did not see us till I touched him, 
nor recognize us till I mentioned our names. 

For the moment a gleam of pleasure crossed his face 
— “Oil, how good! how kind!” — and then the light 
faded. “How did you come, and why? Did Charlie 
say anything ? ” 

I answered — as Miss Trotter had decided I should 
answer, if necessary ; for it was the truth, though not 
all the truth — “ Since you will not come and see your 
godson, I have brought him to see you ; at least, I shall 
bring him to-morrow morning.” 

“ To-morrow ? That will be too late.” He could not 


7 


9 8 


MISS TOMMY. 


restrain a slight shudder. “ Did not Charlie tell 
you ? ” 

“ We know it all, and we have come to talk with you 
about it,” said Miss Trotter, in her firm, soft voice ; and 
I saw her, to my surprise, put her arm through his, and 
guide him across the street corner. He, too, seemed 
surprised, and then he pressed the hand close to his 
side, with a sort of acknowledgment of the kindnfess, 
and as if he found a certain comfort in it. 

“ I was going out for my evening walk — my last ; for 
I am to be shut up some weeks in total darkness. In- 
deed, who knows if I may ever see again ? It is just a 
chance ; but I think it right to take it ; do not you ? ” 

“ I am not sure.” 

“ But I must take it,” said he, irritably. “ I am grow- 
ing so helpless ; and if I have to live on for the next 
five, ten, twenty years — no, no, thank God, not twenty ! 
But even five would be too many, as I am now.” 

He spoke in such intense despondency that I was 
frightened. I did not understand trouble — I had seen so 
little of it in my young life — or morbid melancholy ; for 
Charlie, bless him ! takes everything easily, and is the 
cheeriest, most light-hearted soul ! but my dear Miss 
Tommy, she was familiar with sorrow, as all sorrowful 
people instinctively knew. I fell behind a little, leav- 
ing the two “ old folks ” to walk on together. 

Soon Major Gordon stopped. “ How thoughtless of 
me ! You will be tired this close evening. Shall we go 
back to my lodgings ? ” 

“Or shall we go into Regent’s Park, close by? It 
will be cooler there.” 

“Just as you choose.” 

He contentedly submitted to be led, and his com- 
panion, with a new impulse, as it were, took the leading 


MISS TOMMY. 


99 


of him. She was usually rather a silent person, espe- 
cially with Major Gordon ; but now she talked, and got 
him to talk. I heard him tell her, as if it were a relief, 
all he had suffered of late — the weary helplessness, the 
intolerable irritation of compelled idleness. 

“ If I were a feeble old man it might be easier, but I 
am not feeble. I can walk miles and miles. Sometimes 
I go on walking for hours, round and round the Re- 
gent’s Park ; the park-keepers must take me for the 
Wandering Jew, or one of the wild beasts escaped from 
the Zoological Gardens. I almost think I see myself, 
like the brown bear there, pacing to and fro everlast- 
ingly in his cage — nothing to hope for, nothing to do. 
That is the worst of it,” turning suddenly round upon 
her as she sat beside him on the bench, in that long ave- 
nue which makes Regent’s Park a pleasant place even 
in the dullest summer evenings. “Fancy— you, who 
have such a busy, bright life — what it must be to have 
nothing to do all day long ; to sit thinking, thinking, till 
your head whirls round ; to go back and back upon 
your whole life, and see all the mistakes of it, too late 
to remedy- ” 

“ Is it too late ? Is anything ever too late while life 
and strength last ? ” 

“But they may not last long, and then I shall fall a 
helpless burden upon somebody. But no ; I’ll take care 
it never comes to that. For the burden I am to myself” 
— he stuck his stick fiercely into the turf, as if he were 
slaying an enemy — “ I only wonder sometimes that I 
have not blown my brains out.” 

Here I could not help a little cry. 

“No, my kind niece ; no, my good old friend,” said 
Uncle Gordon, patting our hands as he sat between us ; 
“you need not be afraid. It will never come to that. 


TOO 


MISS TOMMY. 


I am a Christian man ; and, besides, I must keep up the 
dignity of the family. It would never do, would it, 
Decie, for the third Charles Everett Gordon to be 
ashamed of the first ? ” 

“ He never will ! Oh, Uncle Gordon, if you would 
only come to us ; to baby and me ; we are staying with 
Miss Trotter, and you might go to your old lodgings, 
and Mrs. Wilson would be delighted to take care of you.’' 

“ I don’t want anybody to ‘ take care’ of me,” was the 
sharp answer ; and then he begged my pardon. “ Ah, 
yes, I do ; I feel I do ; but — however, perhaps to- 
morrow ” 

“ It is a great risk.” 

“No more than the risk of a battle ; one conquers or 
dies.” 

“Or lives on, wounded and useless, which is much 
harder than dying.” 

“ You are right, Miss Trotter ; I never thought of that.” 

“ If this man — you own he is a quack — should fail : 
if he should leave you worse than before, which he says 
he may, what then ?” 

“ Nothing. I shall have done it by my own choice, 
and the result matters to nobody.” 

“ Is there any human being who can say, who dare 
venture to say, that his well-being matters to nobody ?” 

He seemed startled, uneasy. She went on. 

“ To throw up one’s life, saying it belongs to one’s self 
alone, is some people’s creed, I know ; but is it not a 
very selfish one ? Ought we not to do the best we can 
with the life Heaven gives, until Heaven takes it away ? 
But I did not mean to preach — I am not good at 
preaching— only to suggest a practical idea.” 

“You were always good at practical ideas,” he an- 
swered, with a smile. “ Say on.” 


MISS TOMMY ; 


ior 


She explained that she had a friend — the first oculist 
of the day. With so many invalids on hand she had no 
end of friends among doctors. She proposed to bring 
the great man for a consultation with the other one, 
who could not possibly object to this before anything 
was done. 

“Give me his address ; he shall be written to, and the 
whole trouble taken off your hands,” added this Machia- 
velian woman. “ It will only be a day’s delay, and then 
if you still wish for the operation ” — she glanced up at 
his poor, dim eyes — beautiful eyes they must have been 
when he was young — and shivered, like a mother who 
feels cruelly in every nerve every hurt to the child — 
“ you will have at least the satisfaction of having done 
nothing that was not inevitable.” 

“You are right,” he said. 

“ She always is right,” I added, eagerly ; but Miss 
Tommy laid her hand on my mouth, took out her tab- 
lets, wrote down the address he gave, then asked him to 
put us in a cab, and we would go home. 

“ I am glad to be of some use still,” he said, rising. 
“I shall see you to-morrow. You will bring the great 
man ? I can afford to pay him. Just this one more 
chance ! ” 

He breathed hard, as if a weight were taken off his 
mind, and, thanking us warmly for all our kind thought 
of him, he bade us adieu. 

“ Poor Uncle Gordon ! ” I sighed once more. But 
she did not sigh. She said nothing, yet I thought I saw 
a change in her dear face, of something — not exactly 
happiness, but what I had heard her say was better — 
blessedness. 

The .ass in the lion’s skin — we afterward found out 
how great an ass he was, and how completely he had 


102 


MISS TOMMY. 


taken in the simple old soldier — did not stay to face the 
great lion, but sent word that he had to go to a case a 
hundred miles off, and could not attend the consulta- 
tion. 

“ I thought as much,” laughed Miss Trotter’s emi- 
nent friend, when he heard the name. “ You will never 
see any more of him.” And we never did. 

The great doctor was a character, as most great doc- 
tors are. When we brought him into Major Gordon’s 
dull room his large, kindly presence seemed to carry 
sunshine with it — mental and moral. He took by storm 
the sickly, morbid, nervous man, encouraged him by 
pleasant words, and then proceeded to business. 

“ I must have some one of you with me. Who will 
stay ?” 

“I will,” said Miss Trotter, at once, and Uncle Gor- 
don said, “ Thank you.” 

So they turned us out, Charlie and me. For nearly 
an hour we perambulated the streets, in sore suspense. 

I might have felt it more had my poor Charlie felt it 
less, but I never saw him so unmanned. When at last 
we were summoned back — to no very ill news, as I saw 
at a glance — Charlie quite gave in, and wrung his uncle’s 
hand with something very like a sob. 

“Well, my boy,” said Major Gordon, cheerily, “I 
know the worst now, and no one shall ever say of me, 
‘ A soldier, and afeard.’ ” 

“ No, indeed,” added the great man. “ Mrs. Gordon, 
I have been giving your uncle here a piece of my mind. 
He will never see better than he does now, but he may 
not see much worse, if he lets well alone. Of course, I 
could try all sorts of experiments, but they would be 
mere experiments — all might fail ; and at his age, I re- 
peat, it is better to let things alone. There is a story 


MISS TOMMY. 


103 


about a man who ‘..sought not unto the Lord, but unto 
the physicians * — which means, I take it, that he would 
not trust Nature, would neither believe in her curative 
power, nor accept her natural laws of decay. We often 
do the same thing, and worry ourselves and our friends 
to death, for fear of dying, until we actually die.” 

“ But it is not a question of dying here. I may live 
to be ninety, you say. The question is, how I am to 
face my life — such as it is? ” • 

“ My dear friend ”• — with this honest, good man all his 
patients were his dear friends — “you have but to live a 
day at a time, and it will grow easier as you get used to 
it. I have known many blind men who* led the merri- 
est and happiest of lives. And ‘ better bear the ills you 
have,’ as my dear old Shakespeare tells me, ‘ than fly to 
others that you know not of ; ’ which might have been 
your fate had you risked that operation; We know a 
good deal — we doctors ; but I think the best thing we 
know, and the cleverest of us learn it soonest, is our 
own ignorance.” 

Everybody laughed ; and the tragedy melted into 
comedy. 

A few more wholesome advices Miss Trotter’s friend 
gave, one of which was to “ clear out of here as fast as 
possible.” And on receiving his fee he put it back on 
the table, saying that he, a man of peace, made it a 
point of honor never to take anything from “ our national 
defenders.” So, shaking hands all round, he jumped 
into his carriage and departed. I never see his name in 
print now without remembering the good deed he did 
that day. 

Charlie, too, departed. “You women will manage 
all the rest,” he whispered. But I could manage noth- 
ing ; my nerves had been thoroughly shaken. I was glad 


104 


MISS TOMMY. 


Uncle Gordon could not see me, as I sat in a 7 corner and 
cried. He, too, looked exceedingly pale and exhausted. 

But there was one of us whose strength never was ex- 
hausted as long as there was anything to be done. Nor 
her patience — and it required a good deal ; for at first 
he was deaf as an adder to all her charming. Gradually 
she reasoned him into acknowledging that Mrs. Wilson, 
and Mrs. Wilson’s delicate son, who was a good scholar 
and a sweet-natured lad, would be useful to him ; while 
his taking possession of his old lodgings would be a very 
great advantage to them — which, perhaps, was the wise- 
est argument she could use. The sharpest sting of 
Uncle Gordon’s lot seemed to be that he was now, as he 
said, “ of no use to anybody.” 

“ But we will make you of use, Miss Trotter and me, 
and, at worst, you can play with the baby.” 

“ Is it come to that ?■” said he, with a hearty laugh, 
which looked like acquiescence. “ And that lad Wilson, 
who is so to benefit by the pleasure of reading to me, 
and enjoying my sweet society. I suppose you think, 
Miss Trotter, that I am like the Countess of Pembroke, 
and that ‘ to love me is a liberal education ! ’ A pity the 
experiment has never been tried. But it would fail — 
with me everything has failed.” 

That mixture of bitterness and sadness, with a strange 
vein of sweetness running through it all, intense grati- 
tude for the smallest kindness, and a thoughtfulness for 
others which I have never seen in any other man — no, I 
did not wonder at anybody’s loving Uncle Gordon. 

Miss Trotter went up to him as he stood at the window, 
and laid her hand on his arm. 

“ I don’t think I ever asked anything of you in all my 
life, but I ask you now— Will you come back to Dover 
with Decie and me ?” 


MISS TOMMY. 


io 5 

There was evidently a struggle in his mind as great 
as must have been in hers before she made the request ; 
but both were conquered. 

Major Gordon took the gentle hand, and pressed it 
warmly in both his own, saying in a broken voice, 
“ Thank you ; yes — I will go.” 

What a jubilee of a journey it was ! How happy he 
seemed, and how glad she looked to see him happy! 
And, as I said to Charlie afterward, these elderly folk, 
when they really do enjoy themselves, do it thoroughly ; 
not like us young people, who are always ready to find 
a crumpled rose-leaf under all our felicities. But those 
for whom life is slowly narrowing down to the simplici- 
ties of childhood are, like children, contented and amused 
with little things. 

I had not expected Uncle Gordon to take the least 
notice of his godson, but he did. He even condescended 
to travel with him and with us, for several stations, before 
retiring to his smoking-carriage ; seemingly much inter- 
ested in discovering that young Carl had the right num- 
ber of arms, legs, and fingers— which latter were used 
in pulling his great-uncle’s beard till that respected rela- 
tive cried for mercy. Nevertheless, when driven from 
the field, the Major came again and again to our car- 
riage, asking if we were all right, and apparently taking 
pleasure in being “ a family man,” as I told him, and 
having somebody belonging to him to take care of. 

“ Let me do it,” I overheard him saying to Miss Tom- 
my, in some trifling difficulty about the luggage. “ Let 
me do all I can for you, and as long as I can. The 
hardest thing possible is to be compelled to do nothing.” 

That sentence struck the key-note, I think, of all our 
relations with him, during those days which followed — 
halcyon days, which I look back upon with a peace in- 


io6 


MISS TOMMY. 


describable. It was September, the pleasantest month 
in the year at Dover, where indeed, all months are pleas- 
ant ; but this month especially, with its clear, bright, 
cool days, its brilliant sunsets and harvest moonlights ; 
and last, not least, as a variety, its equinoctial storms, 
when the wind blew and the waves rose, sweeping right 
over the Admiralty Pier and flooding the esplanade — 
nay, once pouring in a torrent over the poor flowers in 
our front garden, and departing, leaving it a wreck till 
next spring. 

“ Next spring,” said Miss Tommy, with her usual 
cheerful acquiescence in the inevitable, “we will make 
it all bright again.” 

She was in an especially bright mood, and looking 
better than I had seen her look ever since my marriage.. 
She was a perfect slave to little Carl, managing him as 
if she had been the mother of ten* instead of an old maid. 
And she took care of me — for I was, not strong— as if 
she had been my mother. How she found time for 
everything was a mystery ; but,, as she said,, laughing, 
“If she couldn’t find time, she made it.”" Thnsshe made 
time — an hour every day — to do writing and reading for 
Major Gordon. 

He had taken up his old quarters with Mrs. Wilson, 
who received him with open arms. Her little house had, 
I noticed, been made pretty and comfortable from attic, 
to basement, and, as she had no other inmates, she wais 
able to give Major Gordon the range of all her rooms, 
and devote herself to his comfort in a way which soon 
showed itself in his changed appearance, even down to 
his lovely white shirt-fronts, and his good, respectable 
coats, hats, and boots. 

“I can’t see them,” he said, “but they feel much 
tidier than they used to be, and I always find them in 


MISS TOMMY. 


107 


the same place, and put them on without any trouble. 
She almost perplexes me with her gratitude, that poor 
woman. I can’t think why she is so kind to me, and how 
she continues to make me so very comfortable at so very 
small a cost” 

But I could. 

However, I only laughed, and told him he would grow 
quite a dandy in his old age, now that he had a woman to 
look after him, to say nothing of that lad Jack, who had 
installed himself as amateur valet, and did his duty both 
with pride and affection. For, odd as the old soldier 
undoubtedly was in his ways^a mixture of irritability 
and independence that made living with him not always 
smooth sailing — he had one peculiarity which I only 
wish were commoner among his sex — he thought so little 
about himself that he made everybody else think about 
him. From the eldest to the youngest of the Wilson 
family there was not one who would not have done any- 
thing in the world for the comfort of Major Gordon. 

Yes, I repeat, those were halcyon days, to me, who 
had had a good deal of suffering and care, and to my 
two companions, who gradually became, in a way I had 
not noticed before, companions to one another. Not of 
mornings ; Miss Trotter was almost always busy then, and 
it was not her way to neglect business. She sometimes 
looked after us with wistful eyes, when she started us 
off, baby and me, to our encampment on the shore, Major 
Gordon for his long morning stroll ; he grew daily more 
active and strong, and his eyes did not seem worse, so 
we said as little about them as possible ; but she neither 
walked with him nor idled with me, until, punctually as 
the twelve o’clock gun fired, we used to see the little 
figure emerging from the house, and coming toward us 
wherever we were — which she always seemed to know. 


io8 


MISS TOMMY. 


And then we all sat and chatted together for an hour, 
till dinner-time. 

After dinner we always drove far away inland, or 
through the flat and dull country — not pretty to look at, 
but fresh with salt wind, and glimmering with continual 
glimpses of sea — toward Walmer and Deal. Uncle 
Gordon always liked the sea best. He said he had b^en 
brought up near it in his youth, and had never got over 
the love of it and the delight ki it. The mere “ smell of 
the sea,” he sometimes declared, seemed “ to kill fifty 
years,” and make him feel like a boy again. 

There was at times a curious youthfiulness about him 
still ; or it se6med to have sprung up of late, like autumn 
crocuses. He took an interest in all our proceedings, 
women as we were. But we were neither silly nor idle 
women — certainly, one of us was not. Accustomed for 
years to manage her large fortune entirely herself, Miss 
Trotter’s responsibilities and sphere of action were very 
wide. Until I listened to her talks with Major Gordon, 
whose advice and opinion she often asked — for it gave 
him something to think of, and occasionally his great 
longing “ something to do ” — I had no idea how largely 
useful an old maid’s life could be, nor what an impor- 
tant element she was in the community. These were 
before the days of women’s rights. I do not believe 
Miss Trotter ever dreamed of being made a common- 
council woman, or of having a seat in Parliament, 
yet she could have filled both offices better than 
a good many men I know. Her capacity for business 
was as great as her delight in it — real delight — the 
pleasure of seeing things work harmoniously, of em- 
ploying all her energies, and using — not abusing — all 
her money, since, as she sometimes said, the one aim of 
life should be, “ Let nothing be lost.” 


MISS TOMMY. 


109 

She was never much of a talker, but I noticed that, 
seeing how dependent Major Gordon naturally was upon 
conversation, she learned to talk more. And, in spite 
of her shyness at reading aloud, she taught herself to do 
it, and, of evenings, often read to us for hours — “in* 
humble emulation of Charlie,” she once said, when I, 
who remembered that last reading of Charlie’s and the 
unlucky consequences which followed it, felt conscience- 
stricken. But the Major sat impassive, never taking 
the slightest notice. Perhaps he had entirely forgotten 
the unfortunate incident — perhaps 

I never was inside a man’s heart — very queer articles 
they must be sometimes ! I never knew much of any 
man except my dear, simple-minded spouse ; but I think, 
if anything ought to have touched a man — not his vanity, 
not his passions, but that highest and best self of him 
which all good men have — it would be that which had 
been given to Major Gordon. However, I have not to 
judge, only to record. 

Day by day went on. Miss Trotter seemed to have 
the art of filling up every hour with something pleasant. 
Carl grew into a young Hercules, and I into a very 
creditable mother of the same. Every day Uncle Gor- 
don appeared with a brighter look and a lighter step. 
Pie was indeed, as Miss Trotter always declared, remark- 
ably hale and active for his years. Far more so, as we 
both gradually found out, than she. 

“She seems so tired,” he said to me one day. I had 
not given him credit for noticing the fact — men seldom 
do know whether we are tired or not. I am sure I might 
be ready to drop before my dear innocent Charlie would 
ever find it out — but that is neither here nor there. 

“ She often is tired,” I answered, “only she doesn’t 
say so. She hates to trouble anybody.” 


no 


M/SS TOMMY. 


“ Indeed ! ” and from that time his hand was always 
ready to help her across the shingle, his arm to sustain 
her in our walks up and down the esplanade. He ac- 
commodated his quick pace to her slow one, his long 
' strides to her tiny footsteps, turned when she turned, 
and stopped when she seemed weary. 

Those quiet walks, sometimes in sunshine, but oftener 
in twilight, or even moonlight and starlight — for, on 
account of his poor eyes, Uncle Gordon liked walking 
at night — how enjoyable they were ! What a fairy pic- 
ture the old town became, with its circle of glittering 
lights, echoed by the lights of the Castle and the heights ; 
while on the other side was the ever-moaning sea, a 
dense black, dotted with masses of white foam, or shin- 
ing in that mysterious, moon-made “ path of rays ” which 

“We think would lead to some bright isle of rest.” 


So beautiful, so dream-like, the scene often used to be, 
that even I, happy wife and mother as I was, with all 
the blessings of youth close in my grasp, grew senti- 
mental. It was enough to make old people forget they 
were old — and wish they could begin their life over 
again — only, with a difference ! 

“ I wonder how it would feel to be like that little man 
of yours, Decie,” said Major Gordon one day, pointing 
to Carl, who was rolling about on the sea-shore at St. 
Margaret’s. We had taken him with us there, as we 
were to be several hours away. Uncle Gordon had said 
he should like to have our tea picnic in a quite new 
place ; and whenever he wished a thing, I noticed that, 
soon or late, it came about. “Carl, my friend, if my 
poor old soul could somehow get into your little body, 
and begin life all over again, what would I do with it ? 


MISS TOMMY. 


in 


Miss Trotter” — turning to her as she sat on the shingle 
— we had investigated the picturesque village and the 
fine old church, and the steep descent to the little bay, 
and were sitting down — she always seemed glad to sit 
down — “ Miss Trotter, do you know, I sometimes feel 
afraid of growing old. Do you ? ” 

“No;” afterward, with a gentle smile and a firmer 
decision, she repeated, “ Oh, no ! ” 

“But you would like to be young? I was always 
happy when I was young — were not you ?” 

“ Happiness comes to some early, to others late ; and 
perhaps it is best not to think much of happiness at 
all. One often finds it when one has ceased to look 
for it.” 

“ But I used to look for it — here, there, and every- 
where — eagerly, greedily — and I never found it. And 
now I am left ‘on the bleak shore alone,’ as the song 
says. Solitary, useless, blind, no wonder I am afraid of 
old age.” 

It was a good while before she answered, and then it 
was in a slightly constrained tone. 

“ I think your fear of the future is needless. As 

Dr. told you, one has but to live a day at a time. 

Your eyes are never likely to be worse than now ; and 
I have known people who could not see at all, yet were 
neither dependent nor helpless.” 

It was the wrong word as she saw, with a sting of 
pain, when too late to alter it. 

“ I hate to be helpless,” he broke in, almost fiercely ; 
“and as for being dependent, I should loathe it. I 
mean to do all I can for myself, to my vqry last breath.” 

“ So do I,” was the quiet reply. “ I can understand 
the man — who was it? — that wished to ‘die standing.’ 
But one cannot always stand, and stand alone. Some- 


1 12 


MISS TOMMY. 


times I have to lean pretty hard on Decie there. She 
does not mind it, and I— I rather like it.” 

“ Thank you,” I cried, impulsively clasping the dear 
little soft hand. I had begun to comprehend the pride 
and pleasure it is for the young to help the old, though 
I did not take in as I do now how little we can help 
them — how many burdens they have to bear which God 
only can lighten, until, in his own good time, he takes 
them all away. 

It went to my heact to see this dear woman putting 
out her frail little hand to carry another’s burden, as if 
she had none of her own. 

“ I think,” she said, “old age should be to us a Sab- 
bath after the week’s work is done. We should rest, 
and be glad to rest ; we should not try to do more than 
we can do, and then be angry that we cannot do it. It 
is better often to accept our infirmities than to struggle 
against them. They may not be harder than many 
things we suffered in our youth. I once heard a sorely 
tried woman say, her greatest trial was that her suffer- 
ings were only mental ; no sorrow ever made her ill, 
and it would have been such a relief to be ill ! Now, I, 
who never feel quite well ” 

Major Gordon turned to her with a startled air. 

“ I mean, very seldom. But I always feel quite 
happy,” she added, in her cheerfullest of tones. 

And she looked happy. There was now in her faded 
face a continual peace, deeper even than when I first 
knew her. Then there was a kind of effort in it, deter^ 
mination to be happy, spite of fate. Now there was 
none — she was happy. She sat with my boy across her 
lap ; he had tired himself out, and then settled down 
(truly, though I say it, there never was such a good 
child as my little Carl !). She kept patting him softly 


MISS TOMMY. 


i*3 

while she talked ; but her eyes looked out far beyond 
him, beyond us all, to the great wide sea shining in the 
sun — the sea which she had been so fond of all her life, 
across which her heart must have fled many a time ; 
but it had no need to do that now. 

Major Gordon sat and smoked his pipe, perfectly 
content. It was touching to see how very qontent he 
could be, for a man who had knocked about the world 
for half a century — he once told us he was a mere boy 
when he first went out to India. And he was content 
with such little things — our innocent, childish, tea pic- 
nic, and the book afterward. Miss Trotter generally 
produced a book from her pocket wherever we went ; 
it whiled away the time to him, who could neither 
scramble about nor enjoy views. And, as. he often 
said, it gave him something to think about. 

We had been going through a course of Shakespeare, 
which he enjoyed with the freshness and simplicity of a 
boy — he said he had never “ cultivated his mind” be- 
fore, and was determined to do it now, or, rather, we 
were doing it for him. 

“ Go on with ‘ King Lear,’ will you, Miss Trotter, if 
Decie can put up with such a melancholy story ? But 
I have a fellow-feeling for the poor old forsaken king, 
and the blind Gloucester. You were just at the point 
where they got to Dover fields, and he wanted to throw 
himself over the cliff, and Edgar saved him — was it not?” 

“ Yes ; how well you remember ! ” 

So he did, every word she read, with that pleasant 
voice of hers, “gentle and low, an excellent thing in 
woman.” How Uncle Gordon made us laugh, even in 
that most pathetic passage over Cordelia, by his em- 
phatic “Yes, so it is!” His listening was the most 
earnest, absorbing thing, just like a child’s. 

8 


MISS TOMMY. 


114 

“ Poor old Gloucester. What a take-in it was ! And 
yet it was right. I hope he kept to the ‘ free and pa- 
tient thoughts ’ which Edgar recommended. But it isn’t 
always easy for a blind man to be patient,” he sighed. 
“And that is your Shakespeare’s Cliff, Miss Trotter. I 
remember, you told me to look out for it, the first day I 
went back to India. I could see it then, I can’t now. 
But I could climb it still, if you would guide me as Ed- 
gar did Gloucester. I’ll promise not to throw myself 
over.” 

He seemed so eager to go, with the restlessness which 
still came over him at times, though much seldomer than 
formerly, that Miss Trotter proposed our driving direct 
from St. Margaret’s to Shakespeare’s Cliff. 

“We should get there before sunset, and the sky looks 
stormy ; we may have the equinoctial gales soon, and 
our cliffs are not safe in a high wind. “ Perhaps we had 
better not lose this calm day.” 

“That’s right,” said Uncle Gordon; “I like doing 
things at once. I always did. When one is young one 
hates to lose time.” 

“And when one is old one has no time to lose.” 

She rose, gave Carl to his nurse, and soon we were all 
climbing the steep ascent which leads down to that 
lovely, lonely bay of St. Margaret’s. I noticed how often 
she paused, and how heavily she sometimes leaned on 
me, or on the stronger hand which was always at her ser- 
vice now. “ Let me help you,” Uncle Gordon used to 
say ; “ it helps me too, you know.” 

Qq our drive home I thought my dear Miss Tommy 
palfo e F sjfeqtj yrafching the sunset, which promised 
tQ be yepy fiqe. §qme of the grandest sunsets I have 
(ever seen fraye been from phe hillrqad between St. Mar- 
garet’s and Payer Castle. She pointed it out to me, but 


MISS TOMMY. 


Ir 5 

still silently. We had both of us learned not to speak 
much of pleasures in which poor Uncle Gordon could 
not share. 

I know not why I should call him “ poor ” Uncle Gor- 
don, for, indeed, I had almost ceased to pity him. He 
bore his affliction with such patient heroism — the hero- 
ism of courage, not stoicism — for he let us help him and 
guard him as much as ever we liked, except that he was 
so anxious not to give us “ trouble.” 

When we had deposited Carl and his nurse at home, 
he was most eager to go on to Shakespeare’s Cliff ; so we 
went as far as the carriage could be taken, and climbed 
the rest — a rather hasty climb, for the sun was sinking 
fast. Miss Trotter faintly suggested that Uncle Gordon 
and I should go alone, but he would, not hear of it. 

“It is an easy ascent, you say, and Decie and I will 
help you. Oh, no, you must not stay behind. We could 
not possibly do without you — we never can.” 

She smiled, and went. 

Everybody knows Shakespeare’s Cliff — the haunt of 
Dover shop-girls and shop-boys on Sunday afternoons, 
and of Dover visitors all the week. Nothing in the least 
adventurous about it; just a steep down, green and 
smooth, rising to a peak, wdiere you can look over the 
sheer, precipitous cliff into the sea. Not now, however, 

“ Half-way down 

Hangs he who gathers samphire — dreadful trade ! ” 

Neither do 

“The fishermen that walk upon the beach 
Appear like mice.” 

Doubtless the cliff is much less grand than it was in 
Shakespeare’s time, if Shakespeare ever saw it ; but it is 
grand still— so dizzy a height that I was not surprised to 


n6 


MISS TOMMY. 


see Miss Tommy catch hold again, of her own accord, of 
the hand which had helped her up. He turned round 
and smiled. 

“ Don’t be afraid ; I shall not jump over, and so ‘ shake 
patiently my great affliction off,’ like poor old Glouces- 
ter. I might have done so once — I don’t know — if you 
had not come and saved me.” 

Uncle Gordon said this with deep feeling. He stood, 
holding tightly her hand, while with the other hand he 
took off his hat and bared his head to the wind, which 
blew sharp and keen. It was a fine face, a noble face, 
with its look of quiet heroism, with its smooth brow and 
shut eyes, turned toward the gorgeous sunset, which, 
alas ! to him was nothing. But he had much enjoyment 
left still ; and, what is rather rare, he seemed to know it 
and own it. 

“ People talk of owing their lives to other people, but, 
Miss Trotter, I think I shall owe you more than my life 
— the worth of it — if, old as I am, it ever gets to be 
worth anything ; and I hope I shall not forget. But 
you are shivering — I can feel your hand shake.” 

It was nothing, she said ; only she had been hot with 
walking, and the wind up here was very cold. 

Major Gordon took up his outer coat, and, in spite of 
all her remonstrances, wrapped her in it. We hurried 
her down to the carriage, almost carrying her between 
us, the little “ fairy godmother,” as he sometimes called 
her. She laughed at our anxiety, speedily recovered 
herself, or seemed to do so, and was unspeakably bright 
and gay all the evening, looking so pretty and so young 
— I wished Uncle Gordon had had his eyes. As for his 
heart, it was an article so incomprehensible that by this 
time I had ceased speculating about it, and given it up 
in despair. 


MISS TOMMY. 


117 

Next day, for the very first time since I had known 
her, Miss Tommy did not appear at breakfast. She was 
not ill, she said, only she felt tired — rather more tired 
than usual ; but she should certainly be up by noon. 
-However, noon came, and she was not up, to the great 
perplexity of Major Gordon, who appeared, as usual, to 
have his newspaper read to him. 

I had to do it, but he complained that I did not read 
half sowell, nor could understand what he wanted read, 
as did the “fairy godmother.” At which, when I told 
her, she laughed heartily, and declared that, after going 
through life without any accomplishments, it was most 
delightful to have acquired in her old age that most 
useful one — the art of reading aloud. 

“ Tell Major Gordon his praise puts me on my mettle. 
I shall certainly be up to-morrow.” 

And so she was ; but only to find that she was able 
for nothing more than to lie on the sofa in the sitting- 
room beside her bed-room — the “ parlor ” we called it, 
because such endless talking went on in it ; such a 
ceaseless stream of people usually came to consult her 
there — people in trouble, people in joy, people wanting 
money, advice, sympathy, help; continual “wants,” 
which Miss Trotter was expected to supply, and did 
so, as far as was in her power, every day of every 
week. 

But she could not do it now. She lay, smiling still, 
and not “very” ill, she affirmed, but still unable to see 
anybody. I had to keep guard at the door — no sinecure ! 
— and tell all visitors that it was “ only a chill,” and she 
would be better to-morrow. 

“ That ‘only a chill!’ — I don’t like it,” said Uncle 
Gordon, who came to the house about six times a day, 
and sat patiently in the drawing-room, or made himself 


n8 


MISS TOMMY. 


useful in amusing little Carl ; for the child took an un- 
comfortable fancy of crying for his mother. “ You see, 
an old soldier learns to be a bit of a doctor, and I know 
many a bad illness comes from a mere chill. She must 
have got it that evening on Shakespeare’s Cliff, and it 
was I who persuaded her to go.” 

He seemed so distressed, so remorseful, that I made 
out my anxiety to be less than it really was, and got him 
to stay the evening. I read to him, talked to him, but 
it would not do. He could not rest ; lie seemed to be 
perpetually missing her ; indeed, the room looked so 
empty and felt so silent without her, that I could hardly 
bear it myself. It was a real relief when, at last, he fell 
asleep in his favorite arm-chair, for he seemed unwilling 
to leave the house till the latest possible minute. Not 
till all was quiet, and I myself the last person up, did I 
succeed in turning him out, and watching his retreating 
figure — such a firm, active step it was still ! — -along the 
shore. 

At eight in the morning he came back again, “just to 
inquire.” He looked sorely troubled to find my invalid 
was no better, and when I went up to her I could hear 
him pacing to and fro in the room below, till I almost 
feared she must hear him too. Once, I was sure she 
did. She was lying with her eyes shut— asleep, I thought 
— when she suddenly opened them. 

“ Is that Major Gordon ? ” she asked. 

I said “Yes;” and told her how I could hardly get 
him out of the house, and how restless and unhappy he 
was, blaming himself as the cause of her illness. 

“ Oh, no,” with the brightest of smiles. “ Tell him I 
am quite sure to be better to-morrow.” 

She closed her eyes and went to sleep again, with a 
look as peaceful as that of my little Carl. 


MISS TOMMY. 


n 9 

But she was not “ better to-morrow,” and I insisted 
on sending for the doctor. 

Miss Tommy did not like doctors ; busy people, and 
people not given to trouble much about themselves, sel- 
dom do. She said — imitating gayly one of the Scotti- 
cisms that even yet Major Gordon occasionally let fall — 
that “ she couldna ’ be fashed ; ” that machines would 
wear out, and had better wear out with as little fuss as 
possible ; but to-day, when I urged our great anxiety — 
his, as well as mine — she yielded. 

I was out when the doctor came ; she had sent me for 
my daily walk with Uncle Gordon. “ He must not miss 
it,” she said ; “and, besides, sick-nurses ought to go out 
every day. I have had a great deal of nursing to do in 
my life, but I never was nursed before,” she added, and 
put up her face to kiss me, like a child. When I re- 
turned the doctor had come and gone. 

Miss Trotter was lying on her sofa in the parlor. 
How sweet sh^ looked in her soft gray dressing-gown and 
close white cap ! But her face was turned to the wall. 
She hardly poticed my entrance, and, when I spoke, 
moved wi|:J} a f|^lf-startled look, as if I had roused her 
from sleep or deep thinking. Her cheeks were flushed, 
and fyer breathing was quick and hard. 

J^gcie,’’ she whispered, “ the doctor says I am to go 
to bed and stay there. I think he js right, byf I \vajted 
till you came in, Also because*’ — sfle lifted bers.pl f up 
and looked in my face with a sad, earnest expression^ 
“I want to see Major Gordon, for just five minutes.” 

I hesitated. In truth, I was shocked to see the 
change in her. 

“ It cannot harm him or me, I must see him. You 
can stay. I have nothing, almost nothing, to say to 
him ; but I fjiust see him.” 


120 


MISS TOMMY. 


And she lay, scarcely moving, with her eyes fixed on 
the door, until he came. 

If I had not loved my Charlie — and yet that was a 
different sort of love too — I could never have under- 
stood that yearning gaze, nor the quick, bright smile, 
followed by a look of intense content and rest, as Major 
Gordon sat down beside her, and took her hand in both 
his — which he sometimes did now both to her and to me 
—a pathetic sign that the darkness was growing round 
him, leaving only the sympathy of voice and touch. 

I went and sat in the bow-window, watching the long 
rollers of the tide that curled over and broke against the 
sea-wall in showers of spray. My full, bright life — as 
full, bright, ay, and as restless as that tide — and these 
two quiet lives, all but done, one perhaps, just ebbing 
away — what a contrast ! 

“I sent for you,” she said, for Uncle Gordon seemed 
too much moved to utter a word, “because the doctor 
tells me I shall not be able to see any one for some time, 
and I thought I should like to see you again, in case — in 
case — Not that it much matters ; but one never knows.” 

He started. “You do not mean that? Oh, no, no, 
no ! It was the chill on the cliff-top, and I brought you 
there. It is I that have killed you.” 

“Not in the least,” she answered, strongly and firmly. 
“You must never imagine such — such utter nonsense. 
On the contrary,” changing her little laugh into ear- 
nestness, “ something you said then will make me 
happy ; would have made me happy for all my days to 
come. I wanted to tell you so.” 

She paused, but he said nothing. She went on : 

“ Once you asked me if I had had a happy life. No, 
not very. But I have tried to make the best of it, as 
everybody can.” 


MISS TOMMY. 


T2I 


“ I wish to God I had done so too !” 

“You have,” she answered, eagerly; “indeed you 
have. I know it. You thought I knew nothing, but I 
knew everything, and have known it all along. And I 
say you have done all you could, in all ways. It has 
been a comfort to me for years and years, to feel this ; 
to think that there was somewhere in the world, if ever 
so far away, a man so good as you.” 

She spoke with difficulty, and with long pauses be- 
tween, but distinctly and firmly, as people speak on their 
deathbeds, when they have ceased to have anything to 
hope for, anything to fear. He could not see her face, 
but she could see his, and I was glad she could. 

“Now, my friend ” (as she now and then called him, 
though generally nothing but Major Gordon), “now 
you must go.” 

“ Presently. One word — you are not so very ill ? 
You will try to get better ? ” 

“Oh, yes ; I will try,” speaking in the soothing tone 
one uses to a child — not unneeded, he being utterly un- 
manned. 

I rose, for I felt he must go. 

“Good-bye, then; just for to-day,” he muttered. 
“ Good-bye.” 

And, lifting her hand, he would have kissed it ; but 
she drew him nearer to her, and, putting both her arms 
round his neck, with unutterable tenderness, she kissed 
him on the forehead and on the poor blind eyes. 

“All my life — all my life !” she murmured, with a 
smothered passion almost like that of youth. They 
kissed one another once more, solemnly and lingeringly, 
as if for an eternal farewell, and then I led him out of 
the room. 


122 


MISS TOMMY. 


My dear Miss Tommy did not die. For weeks it was 
a struggle between life and death, but life gained the 
victory. 

“ I wish to live/’ she said, more than once. “ I have 
so much to live for ; so much to do.” 

And well she might have said this, had she seen the 
cruel “ want ” she was in the house, in the neighbor- 
hood, even in the outside world. Not till then — for she 
had never had a dangerous illness in her life — not till 
then did anybody find out how deeply Miss Trotter was 
beloved and how' widely respected. The rich came in their 
carriages, the poor on their ragged feet, to her door, 
and looked up with tears to that silent window, behind 
which the fight for life was going on. Oh, it was a ter- 
rible time, and yet a peaceful one. I came out of it an 
older and a graver woman — fitter to face life, or death, 
without being afraid. 

I do not think she was afraid — it was not in her na- 
ture to be afraid of anything ; but I think she would 
have liked to stay just a little longer, “to do her work,” 
as she said. And I sometimes fancied she was pleased 
with all those testimonies from outside of what a noble 
life an “old maid” can live, and how sorely she can 
be missed, even though she leaves behind neither child 
nor husband. V ery sweet to her were all those tokens 
of universal love, which an unmarried woman can al- 
ways win ; a love neither of nature nor of blood, but 
of choice and — let not those who never win it deceive 
themselves — of deserving. 

Slowly and steadily life came back into her dear old 
face ; but it was quite an old face now, the hair' per- 
fectly gray and the delicate complexion gone. Nothing 
was left except her wonderful look of sweetness and 
peace^-an abiding inward , peace,, never absent now. 


MISS TOMMY. 


2 3 


Nor did it change when, though she revived to con- 
valescence, we soon began to feel that perfect health, 
with all its activities, energies, and enjoyments, was 
never like to be hers any more. 

Still, after she came down-stairs, we tried our very 
best to make everything go on just as before — with, 
however, a difference. 

Of course, all I had guessed, seen, and heard in that 
supreme moment when she thought she was dying was 
kept by me as sacred and silent as if I had known 
nothing. Uncle Gordon never spoke of it to me, nor 
did she. Whether they ever referred to it with one 
another, or whether they let it all pass like a dream of 
the night — which, in truth, to me it sometimes seemed 
— I cannot tell, and I never heard. When they met, 
which was as soon as the doctor allowed her to see any- 
body, it was like ordinary friends — close and tender and 
tried, but still only friends. 

There was no talk whatever of marriage. Such an 
idea never seemed to have entered into anybody’s head 
regarding them, two such “ old people ” as' they were — 
Uncle Gordon, with his horrors of matrimony, and Miss 
Tommy, who had all her days shown such a total indif- 
ference to it. But I, who had heard those words, “ All 
my life — all my life ! ” read the history differently. 

Possibly it was his pride, or their mutual shrinking 
from the world’s sneering comments on elderly mar- 
riages, or it might have been that she felt her own in- 
firmities, and did not wish to be a burden upon him — 
for she had pride too, dear soul ? But, whatever it was, 
it was exclusively their own concern, and both seemed 
entirely satisfied. 

They- did not marry, yet it was hardly possible to 
imagine a more perfect union. It did one good to see 


124 


MISS TOMMY. 


them together, and they were now together every day. 
How her face brightened at the sight of him, and his at 
the sound of her voice ! There was between them that 
entire sympathy which even married people seldom 
have — that comfort of companionship which, be it 
friendship or love, and whether discovered early or late, 
makes, when found, the utmost blessing of life. All 
the more that neither of them had any other close ties, 
except Charlie and me. But, after carefully thinking it 
over, I decided not to tell my secret, or, rather, their 
secret, even to Charlie. 

They did not marry. And sometimes, when I saw 
the perfect oneness between them, and how completely 
they belonged to one another, I felt there was no need 
they should marry. They were too old for the world 
to say a hard word against them — indeed, it never no- 
ticed them at all. Daily was Uncle Gordon’s tall, gaunt 
figure seen marching up and down the esplanade beside 
her chair — her illness had been rheumatic fever, and it 
was long before she could walk. Later on, when she 
did walk, though very feebly, she was supported by the 
arm which never failed her ; followed, perhaps, by a 
careless glance or two from the groups of juveniles who 
haunt the Dover shore ; young ladies, and young offi- 
cers from the Castle, talking, laughing, and flirting to- 
gether, and possibly calling it “love.” How little they 
understood the word ! But these, whose story nobody 
knew ? 

Even my Charlie, now settled into a practical man of 
the world and father of a family, never suspected any- 
thing deeper than he saw. Perhaps if he had, he, too, 
would only have smiled ; but he was the best and dear- 
est of husbands, and not a bit jealous of my devotion to 
Miss Tommy. Indeed, seeing that I was likely to be so 


MISS TOMMY. 


I2 5 


much at Dover, he proposed that we should come and 
live there ; applied for and obtained a semi-military 
post at the Castle. So we planted ourselves beside her, 
at which Miss Trotter was very glad. 

“ I am an old woman now ; I want taking care of,” 
she said to me one day. “ Others will have to do my 
work for me. I must learn to be idle, and rest.” 

But idleness was evidently a great punishment to her. 
As soon as possible she had resumed her usual “work,” 
as well as that part of it which she had done for Uncle 
Gordon ; such as reading his newspapers to him and 
writing his letters. But very soon the tables were 
turned ; instead of her helping him, he began to help 
her. 

As I have said, in his youth Major Gordon had an 
excellent head for business. Soldier as he was, he had 
accumulated— as in those days the servants of the East 
India Company had many opportunities of doing — a con- 
siderable fortune. It had all been wasted, and not by 
himself ; but he never spoke of this, and I need not. 

Still, his shrewdness and clear-headedness remained, 
rather increased than diminished by his dim sight — nay, 
having once accepted his infirmity, he, with his orderly 
and methodical soldierly habits, succeeded in making 
the very best of it. It w T as astonishing how much he 
did, and was happy in doing, aided by his faithful -sec- 
retary Jack Wilson. 

So I was scarcely surprised when, one day, calling 
me into her room, the parlor, where they usually spent 
their mornings, sometimes with Jack to do writing for 
them, sometimes she and Major Gordon alone, the dear 
godmother said : 

“ Decie, wef want to tell you something ” — both often 
said “we” now. “We have come to the conclusion 


126 


MISS TOMMY. 


that my life is rather too hard for me. I mean, the end- 
less amount of business — other people’s business — which 
I have always done and cannot give up. I need help, 
and my friend here ” — laying her hand on Uncle Gor- 
don’s as he sat beside her sofa — alas, she was almost al- 
ways lying down now ! — “ has promised to help me.” 

“ I am so glad — so glad ! ” 

Perhaps she thought from my eagerness that I had 
meant something different from what she meant, for the 
faintest possible flush crossed her cheek, and died out 
again. 

“ He is going to be my man of business ; to look into 
all my affairs ; to undertake all my correspondence, 
with Jack as his lieutenant and working secretary. He 
will be always ready to give me his advice, and see that 
I am not cheated, and that I don’t cheat anybody — an 
onerous duty. In fact, as I said, he will take care of 
me.” 

“And in return,” added Major Gordon, with a touch 
of his old pride, “ Miss Trotter wishes to give me — and 
being a poor man I am content to accept — a regular 
salary, a much larger salary than I think I deserve. We 
called you in, Decie, to decide the point.” 

“ It seems we need a mutual friend in this, if in noth- 
ing else,” said Miss Tommy, gayly ; and she laid the 
disputed question before me ; in which, of course, I de- 
cided for her, and against Uncle Gordon. 

“ It is no use fighting against two women, and one of 
them with such a strong will of her own,” said he, smil- 
ing, and turning to Miss Tommy — it was one of the 
prettiest things in the relation between these two to see 
how they sometimes made fun of each other’s peculiari- 
ties — “so I submit.” 

“That is right, and Decie knows it is right. She is a 


MISS TOMMY. 


127 


very sensible woman. But indeed it matters little, be- 
tween you and me ; we quite understand one another, 
do we not ? ” 

“ My dear, yes ! ” he answered, softly. That was the 
only difference in his manner to her, which, always so 
courteous, had now in it a touch of reverent tenderness, 
such as he showed to no one else. And when they 
were by themselves, or with only me, he called her not 
“ Miss Trotter,” but “ Dear,” or “ My dear,” with an in- 
tonation such as I have heard between people who had 
been fifty years married. 

Thus all was settled ; and it was likewise settled that 
We should live half the year at Dover, in our three separ- 
ate habitations, but that when we went for the summer 
to Sycamore Hall we should practically become one 
family — “ my family,” as Miss Trotter affectionately 
called us, saying what a pride it was to have a family in 
her solitary old age. 

I think the next few years were the happiest she had 
ever known. She often said so, looking into my eyes 
with a wistful tenderness — the tenderness of those who 
know one another’s secrets, yet never speak of them, 
even between themselves. Yes, she was perfectly 
happy, even though she had her sufferings — the inevi- 
table physical sufferings of declining years, which per- 
haps the old bear better from knowing that they are in- 
evitable, that there is no way out of them except through 
“ the grave and gate of death,” as the Prayer-Book says. 
How much or how little she thought of that, or of the v 
“ joyful resurrection ” with a new body, but (oh, God 
grant it !) with the same soul, I could not tell. She had 
little need to talk of the heavenly life ; she lived it here 
on earth. 

Uncle Gordon had his sufferings too, but they were 


128 


MISS' TOMMY. 


not those of weakness. His iron constitution recovered 
itself ; he bade fair to become a hale and hearty septua- 
genarian or octogenarian. Cheerful, too, in spite of his 
blindness, which never became total darkness. In our 
happy domestic circle the deadened heart of him burst 
out into full flower, late but lovely, “ like a Glastonbury 
thorn,” as I sometimes said. But there was nothing of 
the thorn-tree about him. He was more like a holly, 
which loses all its prickles as it nears the top. 

And he was the best of uncles to Charlie and me and 
our boys — we had three now, so that the clan Gordon 
was not likely to end. Miss Trotter delighted in them 
and petted them all, but none was to her like her own 
Charles Everett the third, whom I generally let her have 
all to herself, that he might grow up as perfect as “old 
maids’ children ” are said to be. Though, as Charlie 
sometimes observed, it seemed “funny” to call Miss 
Tommy an old maid — she, that was a sort of mother to 
everybody who needed one. Her motherliness was her 
strong characteristic. Many grown-up people now liv- 
ing owe their life, health, education — all that makes ex- 
istence worth having— to that childless woman, who 
never had a baby of her own on her lonely breast. 

But she was happy — I know she was. Her empty 
heart was filled, her anxious spirit at rest. She, who all 
her life had suffered and labored for others, now enjoyed 
her Sabbath of peace. She saw of “the travail of her 
soul,” and was satisfied. 

Our last winter at Dover was, I rejoice to remember, 
the brightest we ever spent there. A faint, cold fear, 
which had long hung over us, that my husband might 
be ordered on foreign service, was dispelled by his con- 
senting to retire on half-pay, which Miss Trotter ear- 
nestly desired. 


MISS TOMMY. 


129 


“ Don’t leave me, Decie,” she said, with a pathetic en- 
treaty, the full meaning of which I understood after- 
ward. “ Don’t any of you leave me for very long at a 
time.” 

We never did. Uncle Gordon, for one, was - never 
absent from her a single day — not merely for her sake, 
either. Feeble as she was, he seemed as if he could not 
do without her — her clear head, her bright, brave heart. 
He himself was wonderfully well and strong, looking 
years younger than his real age, taking a firm hold of 
life still, and, as “ man of business ” to the rich Miss 
Trotter, able to make such a good use of it. He liked 
the work too ; it interested him, and exercised all his 
dormant energies. He never now complained of having 
nothing to do, and, indeed, was becoming a remarkable 
instance of how much even a blind man can do if he 
tries. 

“ How well it has all turned out, Decie, since the day 
when you and I stood together on that Admiralty Pier 
and watched the boat come in ! ” 

We were standing, she and I, I remember, at the 
window of her parlor ; I with my last baby asleep on 
my shoulder, and she watching silently her well-beloved 
sea. Also watching Uncle Gordon, who was “taking 
his constitutional,” as he called it— marching up and 
down the little jetty, upright as an arrow, and evident- 
ly enjoying himself exceedingly. 

“How well he looks, how strong he is!” I said. 
“ Never was there a man so changed.” 

“Yes!” she answered, with a smile/ and suddenly 
turned and kissed me — or, rather, the baby— with her 
eyes full of tears. Then added, “ I have had such" a 
happy life ! Happier altogether, I think, than that of 
most women. And I thank God.” 

8 


130 


MISS TOMMY. 


We stood a little while longer, until she noticed how 
strong the wind was blowing, and how thin Uncle Gor- 
don’s coat was. 

“ He forgets how keen our Dover east winds are in 
March. He fancies himself as young as ever ; and yet 
he is ” — with a little low laugh of complete content — 
“ we are both of us getting really old. No, that coat 
won’t do, Decie. I must speak to him about it to-mor- 
row.” 

“That to-morrow” — she was away 1 Isay “away,” 
for I never could feel it like death. We found her next 
morning, asleep, apparently, with her hands clasped on 
her breast ; as she once told me she generally went to 
sleep — “ it felt so like saying one’s prayers.” But she 
was away — quite away. 

She had died, as she must have long known she prob- 
ably would die, of the heart disease which so often fol- 
lows rheumatic fever. All her affairs were left clear, 
down to the minutest item. She had more than once 
said that a sudden death was the happiest of all — and 
she had it. Her great fear — th^t of living to be a bur- 
den upon others — she thus escaped. But her last 
thought was of other people — of him ; for I found writ- 
ten on the little slate which always lay on her dressing- 
table, as a slight help in the endless small things she had 
daily to remember — “Mem. — To speak about Major 
Gordon’s coat to morrow.” 


When Miss Trotter’s will was read it was found that, 
many years ago, she had left half her fortune to Charles 
Everett Gordon. By a later codicil she left him the 
whole, with reversion to his nephew and great-nephew. 
Except some charitable annuities, and one or two small 


MISS TOMMY. 


* 3 * 

memorial legacies, she left it to him absolutely, without 
restrictions — “ certain that he will use it as well as it can 
possibly be used.” 

He did. For a time I thought this was impossible — 
that he would never be himself again, the blow struck 
him so very hard. At first he seemed paralyzed by it, 
then for weeks he wandered about aimlessly, scarcely 
noticing any of us, looking always for some one else, 
whom he could never find. But gradually he rose up 
and faced his work — her work, which she had left him 
to do — and did it faithfully to the end. 

Uncle Gordon lived to be a very old man — winning 
age’s best blessings — 

“Honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,” 

— friends whom he helped to make happy, as his wealth 
enabled him to do. But he himself retained his simple, 
almost ascetic, habits. Many a time I had to look after 
him and change his shabby coat for a new one — remem- 
bering, with the sacredness that death casts over the 
commonest things, that last thoughtfulness of the woman 
who loved him, as, he knew now, no one else had ever 
loved him in all this world. 

He never forgot her ; sometimes for months he scarce- 
ly mentioned her name, but I was sure he never forgot 
her. And often, when his day’s work was done, he would 
lean back in his arm-chair with a tired look, and sit 
long silent — a silence that none of us ever ventured to 
break. 

We had buried her, by her own written desire, at 
Dover — in St. James’s churchyard, which was over- 
looked by Mrs. Wilson’s house, where, whenever we 
went there, Uncle Gordon always took up his old quar- 


T 3 2 


MISS TOMMY. 


ters. Once he drew me to the window : it was a moon- 
light night, and the white gravestones were shining, 
and the trees waving, especially the tree in a corner we 
knew well, just under the gray church-tower. 

“Tell me, Decie, is it all right? — the marble cross 
and the flowers ? She was so fond of flowers.” 

I told him it was a perfect little garden. Not only 
we, but everybody, seemed to take care of it. 

“ Yes. Everybody loved her,” he said. 

After a little I drew down the blind, and made his 
fireside comfortable for him — the solitary fii^side where 
he would sometimes sit, quite alone and doing nothing, 
all evening long. Then, as I led him to his arm-chair, 
he -suddenly whispered, catching my hand and grasping 
it hard : 

“ Decie, when my time comes — remember — beside 
her.” 

I have remembered. 


THE END. 


S H A m: E5 I 

Shame follows every neglect in life, and in neglect of clean- 
liness it comes quickly and forcibly. Contempt for the owner of 
a dirty house, a greasy kitchen, or a filthy cooking utensil is a 
contempt unrelieved by pity and unexcused by partiality. Indeed, 
there is no excuse for such things when every Grocer sells SAPOLIO 
for scouring and cleaning, at 10c. per cake. 



GRAND, SQUARE AND UPRIGHT 



Received First Medal of Merit and Di- 
p loma of Honor at the Centennial Exhi- 
bition, 1876. 

First Prize Diploma of Honor and Hon- 
orable Mention and a Diploma of Special 
Excellence for Baby Grands at the Mon- 
treal Exhibition, 1 88 1 . 

Are preferred by leading A.rtists. 

SOHMER &o CO., 

Manufacturers, 149 to 155 FOURTEENTH STREET, N. 7. 

'r -m i Tgr— m 1 ' — ■ 



THE PEST 

WASHING COMPOUND 

EVER INVENTED. 

No Lady, Married or 
Single, Rich or Poor, 
Housekeeping or Board- 
ing, will be without it 
after testing its utility. 

Sold by all first-class 
Grocers, but beware of 
worthless imitations. 


“T fee Most Popular Books of tlie Bay 


99 


Works of "The Duchess,” 

PUBLISHED BY 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 & 16 Vesey St., New York. 

PHYLLIS. 

1 Vol., 12 mo., handsome clolh, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 
Also, in Lovell’s Library, No. 78, 20 cents. 

“ It is facinatmg to a high degree * * * We lay aside the b jolc 

with a sigh of regret that the pleasure is over, after mingling our laughter and 
tears with the varying fortunes of the charming heroine.” — N. Y. Evening 
Mail. 

“Certainly ‘Phyllis’ is one of the most fascinating little novels that has 
appeared this year. — New Orleans Times. 


MOLLY BAWN. 

1 Vol., 12 mo., handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 

Also, in Lovell’s Library, No. 76, 20 cents. 

“ Is really an attractive novel. Pull of wit, spirit and gayety, the book con- 
tains, nevertheless, touches of the most exquisite pathos. There is plenty of 
fun and humor which never degenerates into vulgarity. All women will envy, 
and all men fall in love with her. Higher praise we surely cannot give.” — 
London Athenaeum, 


AIRY FAIRY LILIAN. 

1 Vol., 12mo., m handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 

Also, in Lovell’s Library, No. 92, 20 cents. 

“ The airiest and most spariding contribution of the month is the brilliant 
romance by the author of • Phyllis.’ It is as full of variety and refreshment as 
a bright and changeful June morning. Its narrative is animated, its dialogue 
crisp and spirited, its tone pure and wholesome, and its characters are grace- 
fully contrasted.” — Harper's Magazine. 


MRS. GEOFFREY, 

1 Vol., 12mo., in handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 

Also, in Lovell s Library, No. 9J, 20 cents. 

“ The chief charm of the book is the beautiful yonng Irish girl, Mona Scully. 
Mrs. Geoffrey, whose naturalness, joyousness, true-kaart«dness, and right- 
mindedness are as welcome as a morning in Spring, or a breath of fresh .air 
from the sea. She is an embodiment of health, humor and love, and unless we 
are greatly mistaken she will long be remembered by the readers of contem- 
porary fiction.”— N. Y. Evening Mail. 

JOHN W. IjOVEIiIj CO., Publishers, 

14, & 10 Vesey Street, New York. 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 


RECENTLY PUBLISHED: 

UNDERGROUND RUSSIA: 


Revolutionary Profiles and Sketches from Life. 

By STEPN1AK, formerly Editor of “ Zemha i Volia” (Land and 
Liberty). With a Preface by PETER LAVROFF. Translated 
from the Italian. 1 vol. 12mo., paper cover, Lovell’s Library, 
No. 173 price 20 cents. 

“The book is as jet uniqne in literature; it is a priceless contribution to 
our knowledge of Russian thought and feeling; as a true and faithful reflection 
of certain asp°cts of, perhaps, the most tremendous politicial movement m 
history, it seems destined to become a standard work. ’'— Athenaeum. 


An Outline of the History of Ireland, 

From the Earliest Times to the present day. 

By JUSTIN H. McCARTHY. 1 vol. 12mo., Lovell’s Library 
No. 115, price 10 cents. 

“A timely and exceedingly vigorous and interesting little volume. The book 
is worthy of attentive perusal, and will be all the more interesting because it 
involves in its production the warm sympathies, the passionate enthusiasm, and 
the vivid brilliancy of style which one is glad to welcome from the son of the 
distinguished journalist and author.’’— Christian World. 

“All Irishmen who love their country, and all candid Englishmen, ought to 
welcome Mr. Justin H. McCarthy’s little volume — ‘An Outline of Irish History.’ 
Those who want to know how it has come about that, as John Stuart Mill long 
ago pointed out, all cries for the remedy of specific Irish grievances are now 
merged in the dangerous demand for nationality, will do well to read Mr. 
McCarthy * little book. It is eloquently written, and carries us from the earliest 
legends to the autumn of 1882. The charm of the style and the impetuousness 
in the flow of the narrative are refreshing and stimulating, and, as regards his- 
toric impartiality, Mr.McCarthy is far more just than is Mr. Froude/’— Graphic. 

“A brightly written and intelligent account of the leading events in Irish 

annals Mr. McCarthy has performed a difficult task with commendable 

good spirit and impartiality.’’— W hitehall Review. 

‘To those who enjoy exceptionally brilliaut and vigorous writing, as well 
as to those who desire to post themselves up in the Irish question, we cordially 
recommend Mr. McCarthy’s little book.”— Evening News. 


ENGLISH MEN OF LETTER. S. 


Edited by JOHN MORLEY. 

Published in 12mo. vols., paper covers, price 10 cents each. 


Johnson. By Leslie Stephen. 

Scott. By R. H. Hutton. 

Gibbon. By J C. Morison. 

Shelley. By J. A. Symonds. 

Hijme. By Prof. Huxley, P R.S. 
Goldsmith. By William Black. 
Defoe. By W. Minto. 

Burns. By Principal Shairp. 
Spenser. By the Very Rev. the Dean 
of St. Paul’s. 


Thackeray. By A. Trollope. 

Burke. By John Mor.ey. 

Bunyan. By J. A. Froude. 

Pope. By Leslie Stephen. 

Byron. By Professor Nichol. 
Cowper. By Goldwin Smith 
Locke. By Professor Fowler. 
Wordsworth. By F.W.H. Myers. 
Milton. By Mark Pattison. 
Southey. By Professor Dowden. ' 
Chaucer. By Prof. A. W. Ward. 


New York: JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 


HEALTH and VIGOR 


FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES. 



o 
H M 



CROSBY’S VITALIZE!} FHOS-PHITES. 

This is a standard preparation with all physicians who treat 
nervous and mental disorders. 

Crosby’s Vitalized Phosphites should be taken as a Special 
Brain Food. 

To build up worn-out nerves, to banish sleeplessness, neu- 
ralgia and sick headache. — Dr. Gwynn. 

To promote .good digestion. — Dr. Filmore. 

To “ stamp out ” consumption. — Dr. Churchill. 

To “ completly cure night sweats.” — John B. Quigley. 

To maintain the capabilities of the brain and nerves to per- 
form all functions even at the highest tension. — E. L. Kellogg. 

To restore the energy lost by nervousness, debility, over- 1 
exertion or enervated vital powers. — Dr. W. S. Wells. 

To repair the nerves that have been enfeebled by worry, de- 
pression, anxiety or deep grief. — Miss Mary Bankin. 

To strengthen the intellect so that study and deep mental 
application may be a pleasure and not a trial. — B. M. Couch. 

To develop good teeth, glossy hair, c'ear skin, handsome nails 
in the young, so that they may be an inheritance in later years. — 
Editor School Journal. 

To enlarge the capabilities for enjoyment. — National Journal 
of Education. 

To “make life a pleasure,” “not a daily suffering” “I 
really urge you to put it to the test." — Miss Emily Faithfull. 

To amplify bodily and mental power to the present genera- 
tion and “prove the survival of the fittest” to the next. — Bismarck. 

There is no other Vital Phos-phite, none that is extracted 
from living animal and vegetable tissues. — Dr. Caspen'. 

To restore lost powers and abilities. — Dr. Bull. 

For sale by druggists or mail, $1. 


F. CROSBY CO., No. 56 West Twenty-fifth St., New York. 


LOVELL’S LIBRARY.— CATALOGUE, 


185. 


190. 

191. 

192. 
* 93 - 


194. 

195. 


196. 

197. 


Mysterious Island, PtII.15 
Mysterious Island, Pt III. 15 
t86. Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each 15 

187. Thicker than Water. ...20 

188. In Silk Attire 20 

189. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 
Scottish Chiefs, Part 1 1 . 20 

Willy Reilly 20 

The Nautz Family 20 

Great Expectations 20 

Hist. of Pendennis,Pt I.. 20 
Hist.of Pendennis,Pt II 20 
Widow Bedott Papers ..20 
Daniel Deronda,Part I . .20 
Daniel Deronda, Part II. 20 

Altiora Peto 20 

By the Gate of the Sea. . 15 

198. Tales of a Traveller 20 

199. Life and Voyages of Co- 

lumbus, 2 Parts, each. 20 

200. The Pilgrim’s Progress . . 20 

201. MartinChuzzlewit,P’rt I.20 
MartinChuzzlewit,P’t II. 20 

202. Theophrastus Such 

203. Disarmed 15 

204. Eugene Aram 20 

205. The Spanish Gypsy, &c. 20 

206. Cast up by the Sea 20 

207. Mill on the Floss, Part T.15 
Mill on the Floss, P’tII.15 

208. Brother Jacob, etc xo 

209. The Executor 20 

210. American Notes 15 

211. The Newcomes, Part I.. 20 
The Newcomes, Part II. 20 

2X2. The Privateersman 20 

213. The Three Feathers. .. .20 

214. Phantom Fortune 20 

215. The Red Eric 20 

216. Lady Silverdale’s Sweet- 

heart . ro 

217. The Four Macnicol’s. ..10 

2 1 8. Mr. PisistratusBrown , M . P. 1 o 

219. Dombeyand Son, Part 1 . 20 
Dombey and Son, Part II. 20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 

221. Fairy Tales, Illustrated .. 20 

222. The Disowned 20 

Little Dorrit, Part 1 20 

Little Dorrit, Part II 20 

Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey. 10 

Oliver Goldsmith, Black 10 
j 226. The Fire Brigade. 20 

227. Rifle and Hound in Cey- 
lon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend, P’t 1 . 20 
OurMutualFriend,P’t II. 20 

Pan's Sketches 15 

Belinda 20 

Nicholas Nickleby,P’t 1 . 20 
NicholasNickleby,P’t 1 1. 20 
Monarch of Mincing 

Lane 20 

Eight Years’ Wanderings 
in Ceylon 20 

234. Pictures from Italy 15 

235. Adventures of Philip, Pt 1 . 15 
Adventures of Philip, Pt 1 1 . 15 

236. Knickerbocker History 

of New York 20 


223. 


224. 


225, 


229. 

230. 

231. 


232. 


233 - 


237. The Boy at Mugby.. .... 10 

238. The Virginians, Part I.. 20 
The Virginians, Part 1 1 . 20 

239. Erling the Bold 20 

240. Kenelm Chillingly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co. 20 

243. Gautran.. — 20 

244. Bleak House, Part I . . . . 20 
Bleak House, Part 1 1 ... 20 

245. What Will He Do With 

It ? 2 Parts, each 20 

246. Sketches ofYoungCouples. 10 

247. Devereux 20 

248. Life of Webster, Part 1 . 15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

249. The Crayon Papers 20 

250. The Caxtons, Part I .... 15 
The Caxtons. Part II ... 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thony Trollope 20 

252. Critical Reviews, etc. ... 10 

253. Lucretia 20 

254. Peter the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons. Pt 1 . 15 
Last of the Barons, Pt. 1 1 . 15 

256. Eastern Sketches 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair.... 20 

258. File No. 113 20 

259. The Parisians, Part I... 20 
The Parisians, Part 1 1 .. 20 

260. Mrs. Darling’s Letters. . .20 

261. Master Humphrey’s 

Clock 

262. Fatal Boots, etc 

263. The Alhambra 15 

264. The Four Georges 10 

265. Plutarch’s Lives, 5 Pts. $1. 

266. Under the Red Flag 10 

267. TheHaunted House, etc. 10 

268. When the Ship Comes 

Home 10 

269. One False, both Fair... .20 

270. The Mudfog Papers, etc. 10 

271. My Novel, 3 Parts, each.20 

272. Conquest of Granada. ..20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

274. A Christmas Carol, etc.. 1 5 

275. lone Stewart 20 

276. Harold, 2 Parts, each... 15 

277. Dora Thorne 20 

278. Maid of Athens. 20 

279. Conquest of Spain 10 

280. Fitzboodle Papers, etc.. 10 

281. Bracebridge Hall 20 

282. Uncommercial Traveller.20 

283. Roundabout Papers 20 

284. Rossmoyne .20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc 10 

286. Cox’s Diary, etc 10 

287. Beyond Pardon 20 

288. Somebody’sLuggage.etc. 10 

289. Godolphin.. 

290. Salmagundi 20 

291. Famous Funny Fellows. 20 

292. Irish Sketches, etc 20 

293. The Battle of Life, etc... 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine. . .15 

295. Random Shots 

296. Men’s Wives. 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin Drood.20 


298. Reprinted Pieces*. 20 

299. Astoria ..20 

300. Novels by Eminent Handsxo 

301. Companions of Columbus2o 

302. No Thoroughfare. .. .... 10 

303. Character Sketches, etc. xo 

304. Christmas Books.. ....20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies.. .10 

306. Ballads 15 

307. Yellowplush Papers ia 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1 . 15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. II. 15 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

London . ... 10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith,Irving.2o 

311. Captain Bonneville .... 20 

312. Golden Girls. ...... ....20 

313. English Humorists 15 

314. Moorish Chronicles 

315. Winifred Power. 20 

316. Great HoggartyDiamond 10 

317. Pausanias ....15 

318. The New Abelard. ....20 

319. A Real Queen ....20 

320. The Rose and the Ring.20 

321. Wolfert’s Roost and Mis- 

cellanies, by Irving. • • • 10 

322. Mark Seaworth 20 

323. Life of Paul Jones 20 

324. Round the World 20 

325. Elbow Room 20 

326. The Wizard’s Son 25 

327. Harry Lorrequer 20 

328. How It All Came Round.20 

329. Dante Rosetti’s Poems. 20 

330. The Canon’s Ward 20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Every Day Cook Book.. 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome. . 20 

334. Life of Burns 20 

335. The Young Foresters... 20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman 20 

339. Proctor’s Poems....... 20 

340. Clayton’s Rangers 20 

341. Schiller’s Poems.... ..*20 

342. Goethe’s Faust 20 

343. Goethe’s Poems 20 

344. Life of Thackeray 10 

345. Dante’s Vision of Hell, 
Purgatoryand Paradise.. 20 

346. An Interesting Case.... 20 

347. Life of Byron, NichoL.. 10 

348. Life of Bunyan 10 

349. Valerie’s Fate .....10 

3 50 . Grandfather Licl«hingle.20 

351. Lays of the Scottish Ca- 

valiers ........20 

352. Willis’ Poems 20 

353. Tales of the French Re- 

volution 

354. Loom and Lugger .... ..20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands. ..... 15 

356. Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker. . . .20 

358. Homes Abroad 

359. Scott’s Lady of the Lake, 

with notes....... 

360. Modem Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism.... 15 





t HAVE FOUND 


WAtCrt * CESS 


HANOI AUO COM 


n .i Ji ii !i mi, 


l^ONRQN |QQ YEARS. INTERNATIONAL AWARD 

" I* v . " lili I! " w 11 11 11 !! 11 V »HHi iHH» ’i ii ini n i' rTTT m rn Ii Inf int 'f t\ <i m 'f nni n n n n irn n if if mi ini ii n rmi ini yrnnnr 


y A BRIGHT HEALTHFUL SKIN AND COMPLEXION ENSURED BY USING 

PEARS’ SOAP. 

AS RECOMMENDED BV THE GREATEST ENGLISH AUTHORITY ON THE SKIN, 

Prof. SIR ERASMUS WILSON, E. R. S , Pres, of the Royal Col. of Surgeons, 
England, and ALL other Leading Authorities on the Skin. 


AND PREFER PEAKS* SOAP TO ANY OTHER. 

The following from the world-renowned Songstressis asample of thousands of Testimonials. 
Testbnonial from Madame ADELINA PATTI, 

“T HAVE FOUND IT MATCHLESS FOR * * J? 

I THE HANDS AND COMPLEXION" ^ XY-c. - 

rTears’ Soap is tor Sale through- ... . 

E ^out the Civilized World, ^ ‘ 































♦ 









» 













































































































































































































































































































f 





























































































* 




































































i aaA*/A^' , VVWVS 



Aa A /« 





^ 1/1 

* ..V ■ . O' 1 

■ ; A £, “rA'Jnf 

r r '■ \; ;;■'' ;v..'; 

.'■■• V/ 

A A 

v t^V Mr Try- ■” ' > '■' 

. - _ A 

A ' ' 4 A -\ r 

a < 


n 

E ! fl (■! At n 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




